


Exoletus

by cognomen



Series: Verse and Reverse [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Historical, Animal Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Multi, Roman AU, Starvation, Whump, slave AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 05:11:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 22,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3434813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Will stands nervous in his master's opulent bedchamber. His eyes trail over the painted walls in the half darkness. He is afraid, of course, of reprimand. All slaves must be, in the presence of the household patriarchs. The fear is irrational - he has not done anything that merits it.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Iohannes is aged, and has little to do with the operation of his household. It is Phyllia his wife, younger by nearly fifteen years, who sees that all operates as it should. She is mother to three, though only the youngest remains living with them.</i></p><p>A Roman AU for <a href="http://the-winnowing-wind.tumblr.com"> the-winnowing-wind's</a> prompt for some Hannibal! Whump. In which Hannibal is a slave, Will has earned his freedom, and things start complicated and get worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [9_of_Clubs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_of_Clubs/gifts).



Will stands nervous in his master's opulent bedchamber. His eyes trail over the painted walls in the half darkness. He is afraid, of course, of reprimand. All slaves must be, in the presence of the household patriarchs. The fear is irrational - he has not done anything that merits it.

Iohannes is aged, and has little to do with the operation of his household. It is Phyllia his wife, younger by nearly fifteen years, who sees that all operates as it should. She is mother to three, though only the youngest remains living with them.

Will had tutored the girls some, as much as he was allowed, before they had married away. It was fashionable, now, to have a lettered wife. She might entertain guests with a 'woman's philosophy', in the Greek mode. Will found it cruel, as training a parrot to speak only for amusement and ridicule, and he had taught them as much as he could to feel their thoughts were valuable.

"Will," Iohannes seems to at last realize his presence, coming up from the depths of the wet illness in his lungs - he has suffered it for years, until he was as now. Failing. Fading. He can no longer rise from his bed nor bear the daylight.

Will steps closer, his hands held carefully behind his back, and bows low. Iohannes cannot see it but Phyllia attends him and she is fierce about matters of respect. Will's philosophic mind suspects she holds tightly to what control she can find, faced with the loss of a much-loved husband.

"Ah, Will," Iohannes says, with a strange fondness. "How long have you been with us?"

Will thinks back, remembering how long it has been since he has seen Athens. How long he had spent carefully grooming Iohannes' children for greatness.

"Fifteen years, sir," he reminds. "Since the year before Marcus was born."

Iohannes laughs, a dry sound that devolves into a cough. The memories, for him, are fond. 

"And in all that time I've had no cause to find fault with you," Iohannes observes. 

It sounds dangerously like an oncoming reprimand, and Will grows tense. Guiltily, his thoughts turn to Hannibal, to the on-again off-again relationship that they hid carefully. They were careful, bordering on paranoia though it was not explicitly forbidden. When they had passed the permissable age for such companionship, Will had not been willing to risk suggesting a more lucrative form of slavery for either of them. 

"You've done well with my children," Iohannes continues. Phyllia shifts - she does not care for what is coming. "And I would have benefitted myself, to have so well-cultured a tutor."

"Your words do me more honor than I feel due, master Iohannes," Will answers, uncertainly. Suddenly, he realizes the extent of his worry - the address sounds suspiciously like a farewell, delivered by the master of the house himself, rather than through the usual mouthpiece of Phyllia. 

He is going to be sold.

The shock and worry of it renders Will numb and silent. Iohannnes continues extolling him for a short time in his raspy voice, perhaps stalling on the point of delivering bad news.

"Very soon, Marcus will earn his purple robes," Iohannes continues. "And therefore, your services with my family have come to an end."

Will stands up straighter, bracing himself into it. In all likelihood, he has already been sold. As a learned Greek servant, his services as a tutor would be highly sought after. In Rome it has become the fashion. He tries to assure himself that he is unlikely to be mistreated by his next owner, but there is always the chance of a cruel master. Of one who sought more than a tutor to his children.

"Phyllia and I have therefore agreed that you have earned your freedom - though we will serve as your patroni until have attained citizenship."

Will's heart seems to stop - a freedman? Will? He can hardly comprehend it.

"We'll support you as you gather a client base of your own, but in return we'll expect a portion of your earnings."

He is already speaking as if Will is free to choose - to accept or decline as a Roman citizen might. 

"Sir?" he asks, very carefully. Iohannes waits - and he senses tension in Phyllia's attitude, but not resistance. He hesitates, and tries not to wound suspicious or ungrateful. "What percentage would you expect?"

"You must do your best to pay us back as quickly as possible," Phyllia says, "and beyond your costs for board, until you pay it on your own, we'll consider our investment repaid by ten percent of your earnings for five years thereafter."

It is a hard deal, and much to the advantage of the household if Will can establish himself as a tutor for several families, but it is not impossible. It is not too much for freedom and the certainty of his own fate.

"I would keep you Will," Iohannes says into the quiet, mistaking Will's silence. "But soon Marcus will go into a century, and there'll be no need of a tutor until his own children are born and grown - some many years hence."

Will knows that Iohannes will not see that day. He will be fortunate, in fact, to see his son's commencement. It is then, on the point of that thought, that Will understands. 

Iohannes is seeing to a continuing source of income for Phyllia. While a sale - Will's sale - would turn a profit immediately, the share in his services would prove more helpful in years to come. Until Phyllia could remarry, if she so chose.

"Sir, I am truly grateful for your faith in patronage," Will says, and he means it. "I promise I will repay your investment as quickly as my means allows and seek enough success to be worth your time."

Phyllia looks relieved by his acceptance, then covers her husband's hand - pale with illness, even his deep brown skin - with her own.

"You'll have an apartment arranged on the market square - or as near to it as we can manage," Iohannes assures. "Gather your things and be ready to move."

Will's heart races, and irreality seems to strike him for a moment. He suspects it will hardly feel or seem real until he and his meager possessions were installed into the privacy of his own apartment. 

A thought stops him, however. He sense dismissal and knows the wiser course is to take it. Instead, he hesitates and asks, "What of the other slaves?"

Phyllia looks up sharply, warning that he has overstepped his bounds. Will regrets asking, but stays for an answer anyway. He hopes - it is not uncommon for household slaves to be granted freedom on the death of their master. 

"Those that remain useful stay," Iohannes answers, and Will knows it is partially a reprimand. It is the only answer he will get. 

Will bows again, taking his leave before he digs himself into trouble with his patronus as his first act as a freedman and clientela. He is only too glad to leave the darkened bed-chamber. He moves carefully and quickly through the hallways until he is sure he is alone and unseen.

Then a victorious mirth overtakes him, and Will allows it to bubble up from the depths. He laughs, victorious and quiet, nearly until collapse. It is a heady feeling, his imminent freedom. A reward he had certainly known was possible but hadn't dared to hope for. To have it, real and solid in his hands - Will enjoys it.

When he can gather himself again, nerves and excitement burned off to a manageable level by the laughter, Will supposes he had best make ready. He does not want to forget anything, or pack it improperly and risk breaking it. 

By far, the most valuable of his possessions are his hand copied scrolls, transplanted with him when he had been sold to pay the student debt of his two older brothers and himself. They contain copies of Greek history, of the works of great philosophers and his collection has grown, patiently copied at the library, or from recitationes given at the public forum.

He finds the idea of packing so many delicate scrolls and sheets of loose vellum and papyrus daunting. The trunk that served to bring them was outgrown, and in any rate served now to hold his clothing. 

Will frowns at it, and his at his shelves of work, supposing he will make several trips. Better the back-breaking work than to lose some months’ efforts on a scroll. He sighs, and starts at the bottom, swinging open the wooden chest to pull out his things so they can be repacked neatly. 

A soft tap at his doorway catches Will's attention, and he looks up from carefully folding his best toga as compactly as possible. 

Hannibal stands in his doorway, dirty and dark-skinned from so much sun. He still wears the sweat and the sword belt of the training field. He is a trophy of war, returned after the last General's triumph and gifted to Iohannes by one of his clientela. Iohannes had been so pleased with the exotic present that he had released the debt.

"Is it true?" Hannibal asks, and Will supposes such a thing would not stay secret long.

"Yes," Will answers, finding his grip tight on the cloth in his hands.

"Will he release others?" Hannibal asks, keeping his tone neutral in case of listening ears.

Will shakes his head, wishing he dared say more, that he could reassure Hannibal it must be soon.

-


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will takes on three students in his first sevenday, two at the recommendation of Iohannes. The children are young and eager, easy to teach. He little understands how much the Romans seem to envy the Helenites - going so far as to pay hefty sums for Greek educated tutors for their children. Yet their pride in being Roman remained undiminished.
> 
> Will supposes it does not need to make sense, so long as it keeps him fed and clothed and puts coins in Iohannes' pockets. His freedom is heady, and he must remind himself at times to keep his feet on the ground. He is unrestrained, unscheduled, and Will fills his free time with wandering instead of chores.

Will takes on three students in his first sevenday, two at the recommendation of Iohannes. The children are young and eager, easy to teach. He little understands how much the Romans seem to envy the Helenites - going so far as to pay hefty sums for Greek educated tutors for their children. Yet their pride in being Roman remained undiminished.

Will supposes it does not need to make sense, so long as it keeps him fed and clothed and puts coins in Iohannes' pockets. His freedom is heady, and he must remind himself at times to keep his feet on the ground. He is unrestrained, unscheduled, and Will fills his free time with wandering instead of chores.

By the end of the second sevenday, he has made enough coin to make a small - but at least extant - payment to Iohannes' household. It is with pride he carries it there himself - and a faint loneliness compels him to see familiar faces. He leaves the payment with Phyllia, though she says little by way of encouragement. He will prove himself with or without her belief. 

He finds Hannibal and Marcus Iohannes - named in honor of his father but going more commonly by his cognomen - at practice in the green yard behind the house. Hannibal is a ferocious teacher but Marcus has benefitted from the challenge, even if at times the teacher has paid for leaving new scars on his student's hide. Will doesn't interrupt, watching them from beyond the stone fence surrounding the grassy space instead.

It is clear that Hannibal's skill comes from a lifetime of survival fighting rather than one of the schools - ludi - that have become popular in Rome of late. His motions are fluid, without hesitation or reluctance. The sword goes where he wants it to, and only there, the blade moving as easily as he might point a finger or make a sweep of his own arm.

When they first started, Marcus had seemed to be standing still in comparison, though he had his foundation work done at the finest ludus in Rome. It had been before Iohannes had taken sick, and he had watched, angry with the waste of the boy's youth and proud of his own decision to acquire a more apt - if more harsh - teacher.

It has paid off. Hannibal is well-matched now, though he always complained that the heavy centurion shield was a hamper to him. He and Marcus circle, pushing for space, locking swords and then drawing apart for only a heartbeat before the sounds of combat renewed.

Will watches, transfixed. He has little worry for Marcus' future, even if the campaigns that face him are hard. Rome's armies are strong, and he will be a credit to them. It is Hannibal that has his concern, now. 

Will has the benefit of excellent breeding and a desirable heritage. He is well educated and polite - in appearance _and_ manner. Hannibal is from a barbarian tribe, considered uncouth and uncivilized. His people had fought fiercely and many would remember the cost to Rome - to their families - in conquering them. He is lucky, in a way, to have been given to someone with a use for these skills of his and not a taste for revenge.

Will knows his best chance, when he is no longer needed by the household, is freedom. He reassures himself that Hannibal will be granted it. Though overzealous at times, and more frequently the recipient of punishment than Will, he has done his assigned task admirably. The spar ends, student and teacher bowing to each other before Marcus tears away to greet Will.

"Teacher, I wondered if we'd see you again," Marcus says warmly. He hops the fence that circles the arena in a smooth motion - he had never seemed to experience the awkward gangliness that Will had felt trapped in until he had turned twenty. Marcus embraces him fondly, and Will realizes his student has grown taller than he is. It is a vast, strange feeling inside him to remember holding, at times, a baby in his arms. Now he must do his best to encompass the broad shoulders in a hug.

"Of course I will come and see you Marcus," Will promises, and tries not to think of it as an excuse to visit Hannibal and keep an eye on the household. "For as long as you'd like me to."

"I've been studying my philosophy," Marcus promises, stepping back and smiling.

"For now, I'd say your swordwork is more important," Will suggests, though Marcus has a good head for theory and critical thinking and he hates to see the boy become a soldier. 

"Can I quote you on that?" Hannibal asks, leaning nearby on the fence.

Will shakes his head, "I did say 'for now', swordsman."

Marcus smiles, proud of himself, and Will supposes for a moment that this is as close to fatherhood as he might expect to get. He has little to offer a wife and less interest in taking one. He is not certain why it seems strange to him only now that he will not fall into the role that society holds as the norm. 

"What are you studying?" he asks, to turn his thoughts away from that direction.

"Xenophon's Socratic dialog, Oeconomicus," Marcus reveals, and Will finds it not wholly surprising. It is a challenging work. 

"And how do you think of it?" Will asks, curious how so delicate a set of concepts as fairness, usefulness, and wealth will translate for someone with such promise at their feet.

"I'm not quite sure yet," the boy admits, and Will is proud of him, hoping that his patience for understanding and thoughtfulness will not fade as he grows.

"Well it is not a sword form," Will says, "Take your time with it. You may have many answers, rather than simply one." 

Marcus accepts that proclamation with pleasure, happy that he has not disappointed his tutor. With a final clasp of hands, he departs to be made ready for supper.

Hannibal lingers, eyeing Will languidly. Will is perhaps acutely aware of the difference in their status for the first time. He shakes his head and leans on the fence as well, from the other side. He is cautious about leaning too close.

"Is there news?"

"The doctor has come twice," Hannibal reveals. "Iohannes coughs more than he sleeps these days."

"No wonder Marcus has so concerned himself with the running of a household," Will muses aloud.

"He needn't be," Hannibal says, giving Will a strange look. He has never studied philosophy, though he would be good at it in a straightforward way, Will thinks. He is smarter than his fierce looks credit him, wise in his own way, with good sense. 

"That is the subject of Oeconomicus," Will informs.

"Phyllia already runs the household," Hannibal continues, "I doubt she will be convinced to loose her grip. She is hardly as timid as what you Romans call 'women'."

Will shakes his head, knowing better than to argue his ancestry - it was difficult to convince Hannibal of the subtle differences, especially given how the two cultures seemed to feed and grow off of each other. It was a far cry from Hannibal's upbringing, amongst the fiercer tribes. He had little use for cities, less use for so comfortable a lifestyle.

"Has there been any talk of your release?" Will asks, leaning closer and speaking lower.

"There is talk amongst the other slaves," Hannibal says, taking his cues from Will in tone. His eyes settle on Will's mouth as they often do when they find themselves alone together. "They feel the way you did."

Will feels some relief. Hannibal is going to be released with the others, and while that will be difficult for him, Will considers it the best option. He is proud - a trait Romans do not like in slaves, and he is defiant enough that some might enjoy breaking him. Will is excited to see him free, though he knows better than to make any plans.

"And how do _you_ feel?" Will asks.

"As I have since they brought me here," Hannibal answers.

Will supposes that's fair. He had resented his own slavery, though he’d endured it with grace - there had seemed no option when his father had insisted. Hannibal had been taken violently, conquered. Will supposes he has handled his captivity with extreme grace, given the circumstances.

"Only so much longer, Hannibal," Will promises, though it is not in his power to grant. He hopes it is the truth.

Hannibal works his tongue over his teeth, a gesture of disdain. "Have you come to make me promises?"

Will shakes his head - he knows what Hannibal wants, a promise that they will continue what they have started, in freedom. He has not yet decided - it would be a dangerous pursuit. Not inexcusable for two of their background, but certainly damaging to their reputations. If discovered, it would add difficulty to an already heavy load.

"Just to pay my patronus," Will says.

Hannibal says nothing and for a moment there is a quiet between them that isn't quite comfortable. Will thinks - unbidden memories - of Hannibal's callous-roughened fingers trailing over his skin, touching his belly, his chest. He remembers the reverence in it, how careful Hannibal had been in courting him. He has let Will have his way with secrecy, with long separation when both wanted nothing more than the simplicity of letting things be as they were.

Hannibal straightens, pushing away from the fence with an angry grace.

"Hannibal," Will starts, wanting to explain, to say something to express that it _can't_ be that easy.

"When you're ready to make a promise," Hannibal cuts him off sharply, "that's when I want to see you next."

Will is uncertain how to respond, what to do with the ultimatum that seems so out of character, and he stays, stunned, by the fence. He watches Hannibal go, the words sticking in his mind. Hannibal's stiff posture, the gruff attitude in contrast to his usual serenity.Will turns away to return to his apartment, moving through the crowded streets.

It comes to him when he has his hand on the door to his apartment, the wood cool against his fingers. Hannibal did not like the difference in their stations, could not stand to be seen so reduced to Will's eyes. It was the new difference between them that left Hannibal so raw.

Will supposes it is no kindness he did the man today, returning to simply point out how wide the chasm between them now was. He resolves to wait - to hold his final decision until Hannibal is freed and not to rub salt in the wound by seeing him before that day.

The decision is surprisingly painful.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -ludi/ludus - schools plural, school  
> -Oeconomicus - This Dialog deals with the proper running of a household and the philosophy of usefulness. It is somewhat self contradictory and difficult. It also covers the management and punishment of slaves and women, which was not entirely atypical of Xenophon's Dialogs 9_9  
> -As always, thanks to my beta and all around amazing person, [Quedarius](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life engulfs him and Will is pulled in - he is busy, but at his own command and the feeling is a heady rush. He is his own master and something about that changes the flavor of his work, though he needs to do it as urgently as if he were still owned. He must still pay for his freedom. 
> 
> It does not stop him from enjoying it.

Life engulfs him and Will is pulled in - he is busy, but at his own command and the feeling is a heady rush. He is his own master and something about that changes the flavor of his work, though he needs to do it as urgently as if he were still owned. He must still pay for his freedom. 

It does not stop him from enjoying it.

It is faster than he expected, and Will quickly transitions into self-sufficiency - it is a matter of only a few months. His free time is spent at the library still, amidst the stacks of scrolls and papers, books and ink. The work fills his time, and he does not return to the estate. At first it is conscious - a respect for Hannibal's dignity and acknowledgment of his own sovereignty. 

Then it simply becomes habit. He sends his dues via courier, and hears nothing back, receiving only a receipt for his payment that shows dwindling numbers - he is already paying off the balance owed for the support given him in his first few months. He will become profitable for Iohannes before the year has closed.

It gives him no time to consider what he is missing, to forget about the affairs and worries of the estate that had seemed so important when Will lived there. It is some months later that he realizes Marcus must now be training with his Legion. With that, comes the wonderment - the slow dawning - that perhaps Iohannes is now dead. 

Once planted, the thought sticks. Will accepts reality, and allows for what it means - things have changed without him there. He has not seen any of the other slaves. He has not seen _Hannibal_. He misses the man suddenly, sharply. When Will had nothing, Hannibal had been willing to share that with him. Too, he had shared the delicious danger of discovery. Will had sought it, when he'd had little to lose - and yet when he'd had an advantage at last, he had discarded Hannibal.

It seems deeply cruel. Yet, Will supposes, it was a fault of both of them. Who could guess if such a thing born of proximity and desperate loneliness could have survived outside of necessity? If Hannibal had believed it would, he should not have laid an ultimatum at Will's feet.

The thoughts turn over in Will's mind as he tries to copy, leaving him scratching out wrong words and re-writing until he gives up on the entire page. He crumples it. Why hadn't Hannibal come to him? He had sent Will away until they were on even footing. Now that they must be... there's no sense guessing. Will gives up on his work for the day. His mind will not give him peace without real answers. For those, he will have to look.

He does not fondly anticipate a meeting with Phyllia - though as a clientela and a freedman he has every right to ask for one. He packs his things into his satchel, devising an excuse for his visit should all of his speculation prove wrong.

Will finds the house in mourning, hung in black and somber quiet, and he discards his excuses. There are very few slaves, just the house servants that Phyllia personally employs. He enters respectfully, waits where he is bidden to wait. 

Phyllia is queen of the household in her mourning, the black suited to her dark skin, angry pride in her dark eyes. She regards Will as if his presence is a challenge to her patience, as if she _suspects_ him.

"Have you come to try and re-negotiate your terms?" She says, her tone nearly a fierce growl.

If Will had even considered it, he would have changed his mind in the face of her wrath. He is glad that he has no such intent. He swallows and stands a little straighter under the weight of her glare.

"I came to express my condolences," Will assures her, carefully. "I find our original terms just as acceptable."

Phyllia's eyes narrow in suspicion - and Will wonders how much false sympathy she has endured, how many attempts to try and take advantage of a perceived vulnerability. Will does not envy her place; as the female head of a prominent household, she will endure many advances. Men will try to take what she has, as a 'favor' to her. Will understands her hostility, though he wishes he could allay her fears so that he himself would not have to endure it.

He cannot see any way to express it to her that would not raise suspicion. Will holds his tongue on the subject. Instead, he forges on in the track he feels most safe in. 

"I didn't receive word that Iohannes had passed. I wished to extend my condolences and -"

"Test my strength," Phyllia accuses. Will is surprised to see her wavering, to see fear in her eyes. "To see if I can hold onto the _scraps_ my husband left me."

Will hesitates, taken aback. It is the first he's heard of any difficulty. Of course, as a slave it had not been his business. As a clientela, it would have been kept from him, to keep him invested. To prevent him from seeking a patronus in which he had more confidence.

"No," Will assures her, "I didn't know."

She huffs out an angry breath, glaring at him. He is sorry that he has come. Will wets his lips, and then shakes his head again.

"Ma'am, you are very strong. I would never doubt you - and Marcus would never claim so much as to leave you with nothing," Will starts, careful.

"There is blessed little for him to take," she admits. "Iohannes-"

Realizing how much she is revealing, Phyllia stops herself. "We will survive it. And do not expect me to be lenient with what you owe."

It is valuable information, and Will reminds himself how easily he could lose his newly granted status - it is as tenuous as Phyllia's hold, and now they must both grip as tightly to freedom as they can. 

"Phyllia," he says carefully. "I need your patronage and you need my support as a clientela. It does not benefit either of us to try and unseat the other."

She waits, but Will sees some hope in her eyes. He wishes he could give her the peace to grieve her husband without this insecurity.

"I fully intend to uphold my contract, and I am honored you chose to give me one," he treads carefully.

Her talk of finances, the house in mourning, the reduction in number of slaves - all of it combines to worry him. He had expected - as the other slaves had - that Iohannes' death would be honored by the release of his servants. It was a common gesture of grandeur, meant to display the strength of the house. A triumph over death.

With no triumph, a very different story could unfold.

"Have you employed the others as clientela in exchange for freedom?" It is the most tactful way he can think of to ask.

Phyllia shakes her head, looking away. "My immediate need was too great."

Will's heart sinks. They had been sold, then. He closes his eyes and gathers himself quickly. He cannot explain his weakness to Phyllia, not without further endangering Hannibal. As he has learned from servitude, he puts his own problem aside as quickly as possible.

"Then I will try to remain profitable," Will assures her. "Your husband was a good man, and I would repay his kindness."

Phyllia pulls her dark veil over her features to cover her weakness. Will looks away to spare her honor - she deserves her tears in private.

"Continue to send your pay by courier, Will," she tells him firmly. "It is inappropriate for a free man to see me during mourning, even my clientela."

It is the second time Will's newfound status has banished him from these grounds. He retreats - gratefully this time. His mind is awhirl, and worry springs alive in his chest.

What had become of Hannibal? Had Will abandoned him to his fate, after giving him false hope? Had he lost his chance to - _what_? Admit he was in love like a hopeless maid? Will is not certain it goes that far. He is not sure - and that's why he's here. It is enough to bring him this far, however, a stone in his belly that is turning into a wolf.

There is still something that feels naggingly incomplete. Something that needs to be communicated for Will to find peace in the situation.

He wants to see Hannibal on an even level.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd, as always, by Quedarius (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius), my patronus (Perhaps more in the harry potter sense of the word than the latin one, however.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will does not dare ask Phyllia about to whom Hannibal has been sold - it would arouse her suspicion. Perhaps, he allows, rightfully so. He is looking for reasons that aren't anybody's business except his own and Hannibal's, and there is a functional need for his secrecy.
> 
> So instead he looks - watches at the market and in the yards of estates he passes. Will feels hopeless, but unable to give up hope. There is even a good chance that Hannibal will have been sold out of Rome herself. He is not too aged to spare him a sentence to work in the mines, or hard field labor. Will does not want it to be so, so he searches as if it isn't.
> 
> Instead of his intense study, he now fills his free moments with wandering - aimless seeking based on no known starting point.

Will does not dare ask Phyllia about to whom Hannibal has been sold - it would arouse her suspicion. Perhaps, he allows, rightfully so. He is looking for reasons that aren't anybody's business except his own and Hannibal's, and there is a functional need for his secrecy.

So instead he looks - watches at the market and in the yards of estates he passes. Will feels hopeless, but unable to give up hope. There is even a good chance that Hannibal will have been sold out of Rome herself. He is not too aged to spare him a sentence to work in the mines, or hard field labor. Will does not want it to be so, so he searches as if it isn't.

Instead of his intense study, he now fills his free moments with wandering - aimless seeking based on no known starting point. 

He keeps his students however, knowing that to lapse in his payments is to risk losing his freedom. Without that, he would not even be able to look. It passes two seasons this way, and Will's dreams fill themselves with old memories of waking warm and secure on his narrow cot, barely fitting with Hannibal at his back. 

The air is cold and turning colder when a voice stops Will in his miserable tracks as he trudges back to his apartment burdened with his load of papers. 

"Will!" it isn't the one he wants to hear, but it is familiar. Will turns to locate the source and finds a familiar face in the market square crowd. One of the old cook's assistants, a man by the name of Iacobus - but he went by a diminutive. Jaco? Will doesn't quite remember, but he smiles to see the man anyway.

"Hello," he says taking in that the man is carrying two heavy water jugs, which he sets down to talk. His master must not be too strict. "How have you been?"

"Well..."Jaco temporizes, and he makes a dramatic, expansive gesture to encompass himself and the situation. "Not quite as I've expected to be."

"I heard that Iohannes left his household in debt," Will says, apologetically. His heart is pounding, and he tries to ease his anxiety - he might finally find some clue as to Hannibal's whereabouts. "That Phyllia sold-"

"Everybody, yes, " Jaco makes a face. "Serves us right for getting our hopes up."

Will does not know that it's a fair assessment. Iohannes had been even-handed if not kind. There was every reason to believe his passing would be honored and celebrated.

"Keep your hopes," Will assures him. "You may serve a bit longer, but if you do well you'll be-"

"Rewarded, ah yes," Jaco rolls his eyes, his tone bland with disbelief. "Says the golden son, the Grecian who could do no wrong."

Will allows that his unique position allows him a little more room for optimism. He also hadn't _asked_ for special treatment, nor had he much control over the circumstances of his birth.

"At least well-treated," Will offers, to make peace. "Jaco-"

"Jimmy," the other slave corrects Will, and he feels a moment of embarrassment. It does sound right now that he's been corrected, though it is an odd name.

"Jimmy," Will amends, "How many of the household slaves did she sell?"

"All but three," Jimmy admits. "She kept cook, one of the maid girls - the dark haired one with the big mouth, and her handmaiden."

It's not entirely surprising - any fewer and it would be akin to destitution by Roman standards. With three, she could keep her household running and claim to polite society that when she remarried it would be her husband's duty to re-populate the estate with servants.

Will takes the plunge, "Do you know what happened to Hannibal?"

Jimmy seems taken aback by the question. It throws him off guard, disrupts what Will thinks would be a long tirade. His mouth twists briefly in thought, eyes sliding up and left as he considers his memories.

"The barbarian? Let me think-" Jimmy stretches the word. "There was an auction. They sold - there wasn't a lot of bidding for him. He sold quickly and Phyllia wouldn't look at him when they led him away."

She had never much cared for Hannibal after all, but Will finds the news worrisome anyway. 

"A strange looking man," Jimmy recalls, "he bought no one else and left right after. Masonus?"

The name is not familiar to Will but it is a starting point - more than he has gotten in all these months of aimless searching. With the right questions he is certain he can find the man - that he can find _Hannibal_.

"Why do you ask?" Jimmy questions. "Does he owe you money?"

It is meant in jest, though Will's in little mood for it. He shakes his head. 

"I told him his freedom was assured," Will admits, telling the truth to a limited extent. "I want to apologize. It must have seemed cruel to him."

Jimmy makes a thoughtful noise, and then tips his head looking Will up and down once, as if re-assessing him. "Well, good luck delivering your apology."

Jimmy's tone is not entirely dismissive, but he seems to think the conversation is over. He picks his water jugs back up and tips his head by way of goodbye.

It leaves Will still somewhat stunned, uncertain what to do with the information - on his way up the stairs into his apartment Will decides it means he cannot possibly give up the search. He should study - Will knows that to let his knowledge slip, to invest less time in learning is to risk losing his edge, but he cannot focus until he _knows_.

Or at least until he has exhausted his avenues of investigation. Except, Will thinks, gathering his satchel and the small handful of coins he has kept from his share, he cannot actually _do_ anything about Hannibal's situation. Will is in no position to rescue him, if he does not discover Hannibal wants nothing to do with him anymore. 

Will hopes he does not discover Hannibal in need of rescue.

He searches, as hard as a hunting hound with his nose to the ground, for two weeks. He cannot find the man - the citizen Masonus, and Will gradually loses the fervor his new information brought. There are thousands of citizens in Rome, tens of thousands of slaves. To find just one...

It proves, finally, impossible. Will cannot sustain so intense a search and keep his focus on teaching. Exhausted, he goes to the market square and posts a notice for his available services and times. If he works harder, he can distract himself.

Deeper, he allows the irrational hope of raising enough money to purchase Hannibal's freedom. It is a very faint glow, and it feels like a fishing net cast blind and wide in the ocean in order to catch a single fish.

He will need more than a little luck. Will closes his eyes and makes a silent contract with Felicitus and Fortuna of Rome, though anything he has to offer feels woefully inadequate for such a large favor. Then he takes a deep breath of the market air - spice and cooking food, perfumes and myrrh - and resolves himself to return to his studies.

When he stands, he impacts another body and stumbles, catching out with his hands for balance. Steel-strong fingers lock around his own wrists and they both manage not to fall.

"I'm sorry," Will apologizes, even before they are fully disengaged.

He has run into a young woman, dark haired and with cold, shielded eyes. She rakes her frigid glance over him, chin held at an angle that warns him not to try anything. 

"I wasn't looking," he assures her, accepting the blame. He keeps his eyes deferred in humility. "I hope you aren't hurt?"

"No," she affirms, the tone strange and wistful. Will feels her gaze on him like a weight. "I didn't expect you to get up so suddenly. It takes more than that to hurt me."

He looks up then and finds she has softened - from steel to a sarcastic, depreciatory smile. Will gets the impression that it is as soft as she ever allows.

"Still, I'm sorry," Will assures her.

She tips her head in acquiescence, accepting Will's apology. She is pretty - in a very careful way. carefully tucked clothes, kohl-touched eyelids and dark black lashes that brighten her gray-green eyes. They are sharp, smart. Will senses a certain depth to her that he does not find in many Roman girls her age. 

"Are you a tutor?" she asks, indicating the bill he had just posted.

"Yes," he says, surprised by her interest. "I'm well-educated in Greek, Philosophy, Mathematics..."

She smiles, a cold thing. Will is both intrigued and unsettled. 

"I have a need for a tutor," she says.

Will is surprised, but not deeply. She seems young to be a mother, but it is not impossible.

"How many children?" he asks, shifting himself into a more professional mode. He adds, "and clearly, I can't teach them grace."

She laughs. " _I_ have need of a tutor."

Will suddenly understands. It is very unusual for a girl of marriageable age to seek further education, especially of her own volition, and it intrigues him. The situation will not be clean, not cut and dried. He considers it. 

"I can pay," she suggests, taking the wrong impression from his hesitation.

"That's not it," Will says, apologetically. "I'm used to tutoring children." 

She allows his polite statement and understands the question inherently. Her approval of him seems to increase.

"I wasn't tutored as a child - not to an extent that satisfied me," she tells him. "And my situation is - well. I'm not allowed to entertain suitor, so I had best entertain my mind."

Will senses the limit to how much he will be allowed to know and realizes it only makes him more interested in taking the job. Will is attracted to the puzzle in it, drawn to the opportunity of distraction that she presents.

"All right," he says.

"Very well," she agrees, satisfied. "But you'll need to teach me at your-"

Will shakes his head. "I can't accept that. I'm a clientela. My patronus will not allow any scandal. We will have to contract in the standard way - I teach you at your household."

"Well, too much to ask I suppose," She sighs. "But I should warn you about my brother."

-

The estate is massive, with winding gardens and carefully tended paths. All of it serves to hide the household away, and for a place so large it is ominously quiet. There are no wanderers in the garden, save him.

Despite Margarita's warnings about her mysterious brother, Will has not encountered him. She had described him as cruel, twisted. A man who had broken from boyhood, and kept the cruelty that children embraced. The need to coddle him explained the secrecy of the estate.

They had met in the garden, surrounded by blooming roses and Will laden with his satchel, stuffed full with scrolls as if over-preparation could ready him. Margarita at least was an attentive student. It perplexed him that she had never been encouraged to learn as a child. Surely, with such riches, a tutor could have been hired. 

It isn't Will's job to speculate - just to teach an excellent student. He cannot help his curiosity at the mystery, however. He looks up at the large house, and wonders exactly what all that hidden perfection is concealing.

A sound draws his attention, and the sharp repetition finally realizes itself as barking. Dogs? The barking reaches a frenzied pitch, excited, agitated. Will rounds a corner in the rear garden, and then stops suddenly.

There are kennels - a lot of them. Low fenced areas in which dogs bark, and now snarl. It's not that which stops Will, but two figures in the square yard surrounded by the cages.

He has not seen anyone else on the grounds, and something compels him not to be seen. Will ducks back behind a hedge and watches.

One of the men stands golden and shining, and every line of him tells - screams, _sings_ \- of violence. He holds himself absolutely erect as he revels in his total power. There is something nearly sexual in the expression of pleasure on his face, the wild hair adding to the impression. He looks as if he has rolled out of bed to this, eager for it. 

Below him another man - but not anything wild or explicit in nature. Will has not interrupted the privacy of an intimate tryst. The other figure is held down by a short chain attached to a post. It forces him to all fours in the dirt, holding him still. The sound of trickling water initially makes Will think that the blonde is urinating on him.

Will has to look again to realize he is simply pouring a pitcher of water into the sand from waist level. 

Will thinks it's almost a worse humiliation, when he combines the facts the scene presents. The slave - that is certainly the condition of the man chained - is shirtless and the skin of his back is red and peeling, burnt by long exposure to the sun. Every line in his crouched body speaks of anger, an animal's rage held in check by sheerly mechanical means. He has been held this way, tormented - _thirsty_ \- for days. Will can feel his own mouth go dry in sympathy.

"Aren't you thirsty?" the man asks. The slave looks up, dark hair sliding back from his face. He doesn't reply.

"Won't you be a good dog and drink?"

No answer, just the angry line of tension. The sound of trickling water stops. The pitcher is empty, and a puddle of water is fast seeping into the sand at the man's feet.

"Lap it from the dirt, dog," Margarita's brother growls - surely this is the cruelty she has warned Will of.

For a moment, nothing happens. Will thinks the slave will lunge, choking himself on the chain at his throat. Then, slowly, he lowers himself. His elbows bend into obedience as if the flex pains him immensely. The slave drinks the muddy puddle, lapping it at the man's feet like the very dog he has been pronounced. Will bites his lip to see the break.

"Good," the man purrs, supremely pleased to see the inflexible broken at his feet. "Good dog. Maybe tonight you'll eat with the rest of the hounds."

Margarita's brother steps back and it's then the slave lunges, hooking a hand out for the man's ankle with an agility that Will recognizes. It is dulled, held slow by thirst, starvation, humiliation. The man shuffles back just quickly enough, the chain rattles tight, and he chuckles to himself.

The resistance pleases him, it is an opportunity to render more cruelty onto his target. He carries the pitcher to a trough and dips it in. Carefully, with his eyes on the slave, Margarita's brother sets it full where the slave can see it but never hope to reach.

Masonus dusts his hand off, proud of himself, and smiles at his victim.

"I'll see you in a few hours, dog," he promises. "Then we'll see if you eat or _train_."

His emphasis shows which Mason prefers. He leaves the yard and the man in it, rattling the dog cages as he passes and eliciting another round of frenzied barking. 

Will only waits until he is out of sight before he goes to Hannibal, cursing and thanking Felicitus and Fortuna in equal measure.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Iacobus, the earliest form of Jacob, hence James, hence 'Jimmy' which Will mis-remembers as Jaco, later to be corrected.  
> -Margarita being an early form of Margaret, hence Margot.  
> -Masonus is just a cheap romanization. It gets the point across however. The Latin for 'stoneworker' is 'Latomus' and I felt that was too far.  
> -Felicitus and Fortuna, the goddesses of good luck and good fortune, specifically those local to Rome. Romans believed that there were different versions/personages for different localities. You'd invoke the ones specific to you, rather than taking the chance of accidentally invoking ones in bumfuck, nowhere, that couldn't help you at all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At his neck the chain is short and tight - no more than a foot in length between the lock that holds the links in a secure, bruising band around his neck and the short pole. It is meant, Will thinks, as a restraint for dogs.
> 
> To what purpose he little wants to know ; the reason that Hannibal has been chained here is clear enough. To be tormented, taught a lesson that Will doesn't want to comprehend.

Hannibal's lips are chapped and peeling, dusted in wet sand from the yard - from the filthy water thirst has driven him to lap up from the ground. His skin - usually tan from the sun - is now red and flaking from far too much exposure to it. At the arch of his shoulders, blisters have formed that threaten to slough away and reveal a whole fresh palette of skin to the burning sun. 

At his neck the chain is short and tight - no more than a foot in length between the lock that holds the links in a secure, bruising band around his neck and the short pole. It is meant, Will thinks, as a restraint for dogs.

To what purpose he little wants to know ; the reason that Hannibal has been chained here is clear enough. To be tormented, taught a lesson that Will doesn't want to comprehend.

Will eases his hands against Hannibal's face, cradling his cheeks and finding them hot and dry of sweat. The dark eyes that lift to meet Will's are not grateful.

"Hannibal," Will does not know what else to say - what else there _is_ to say. 

He can see the purples and greens at Hannibal's neck, carved like a shadow in shape beneath the links that put them there. Will wonders when he had stopped fighting the chain. He wonders when Hannibal will stop fighting to be upright on even his hands and knees.

"How did you get here?" Hannibal's voice is thick - dry mouth, hostility. Will hadn't expected him to react with aversion to his presence, but he shifts painfully and pushes Will's hands away.

His eyes are glassy-dull with hunger and thirst, but still show rage at a depth Will can reach.

"I tutor for - for Margarita," Will explains, withdrawing his hands uselessly into his lap, confused by Hannibal's reaction. 

Hannibal laughs bitterly. "We aren't so far apart that we haven't both come to the realm of Hades together."

It is not so strange a statement. Will's stomach turns to see Hannibal so reduced. He had worried about cruelty and humiliation but had not expected it, he realizes. Not to such an extreme.

"What is this punishment for?" Will asks, unable to conceive of any offense that warranted such a severe reaction.

"Nothing," Hannibal says flatly. "Everything. I refuse to break as he-"

Hannibal swallows and his mouth works, trying to wet his tongue enough to continue speaking. Will gets up and retrieves the pitcher of water. There is no ladle and the water is not as clean as he'd like - he suspects the trough waters the dogs when they are loose in the yard. Will lifts it to Hannibal's mouth and holds it for him to drink.

He drains it dry and Will draws another, returns with it. Hannibal drinks more slowly this time, wary to make himself sick by taking too much. Will spares a grim thought for how Hannibal will evacuate it when he needs to, and supposes in that, too, he is reduced to the level of Masonus' mistreated canines.

Will reaches out to touch Hannibal again, wishing he could offer more comfort - more than that small gesture. Sweat is already springing up on Hannibal's neck, on his shoulders. If the water were cleaner, Will would risk washing the raw, sunburnt skin on Hannibal's shoulders. 

"Can't you give him what he wants?" Will whispers, and he gets a look in answer nearly condemning him for the very suggestion. Will sighs and lets the point drop. Hannibal jerks away from his touch.

"Refill the pitcher before you put it back," Hannibal says firmly. It is a dismissal, and it strikes Will almost like a physical blow.

"Hannibal, he's killing you," Will says stubbornly. "Let me help you."

Hannibal does not look up, instead he gathers himself slowly, in a motion that is careful not to pull the chain tighter against his neck. He sits, gathering his legs beneath him in a crouch, but he does not look up at Will again.

It is stubborn - Hannibal closing himself off as if by refusing to see he could avoid being seen. Will would shake him, if it wouldn't do further damage. He runs his teeth over his lower lip, considering his options.

"Hannibal," he says gently, "I'll get you out of this."

No answer. No hope, Will thinks - just anger and dogged determination.

"But you have to give me time to make it happen," Will forges on anyway. 

It is a lot to ask for, begging Hannibal to concede enough that the punishments won't become even more severe. Will knows that either bending or enduring will injure Hannibal almost as much. He knows which Hannibal's body is more likely to survive.

When neither confirmation nor rejection are forthcoming, Will supposes he must go on faith that his words have been heard. He touches Hannibal once more, gently, at his pulse point. Then he refills the pitcher and returns it to where it belongs. It feels like a very small gesture, but what he had done will spare Hannibal a few hours of thirst.

Will retreats, but he cannot help looking back, memorizing the steps that will get him there. Margarita has asked to engage a few of his hours as often as he can spare them - and she will get her wish.

He feels a certain numbness overtake him at seeing Hannibal like that again. He is uncertain how he can keep his promise to free him or at least to better Hannibal's situation. 

For now he has an excuse to be there, to gather information and help Hannibal. He isn't sure if he can appeal to Margarita for help - but something about her attitude suggests she might prove to be an ally in disappointing her brother.

He pauses on his way home only to send payment to Phyllia. He knows he must keep being profitable, as much for Hannibal's sake as his own. Suddenly, freedom feels like more to deal with than his slavery ever was - at least that burden he could share. Secretly and carefully in the quiet nights when the household was asleep.

He remembers the ghost of Hannibal's heated skin under his fingertips. It transforms from passion to determination as the memory changes to the more recent touches, his skin red and raw rather than warm and firm. Rejecting Will's touch rather than welcoming it.

He wonders at which point he could have changed these events, and comes up with no solid answer. He returns to his apartment and the weight of his laden satchel drags Will down to the floor. His mind turns ideas over and rejects them - he could try to free Hannibal, but the risks involved are greater than Will likes. Hannibal would be killed if he was found as a runaway, and if they could torture Will's name from his lips first, he really would find himself sharing Hannibal's trip with the ferryman.

He could not, he was certain, convince Phyllia to buy Hannibal back, not even if he promised her the whole of his profits until he paid her back. His hopes had to lie with Margarita and Masonus themselves. Will might convince them to sell Hannibal to him - but not, perhaps, before Hannibal has provided the last shred of entertainment to be wrung from him.

He's not sure either of them can wait that long, even if he's fairly certain Hannibal will survive Masonus' worst out of spite. 

Finally, he forces himself up, exhausted. Though it seems impossible at the moment, that is not reason enough to abandon it. Will sets the issue down and tries to leave it be until he finds some new way to approach the problem. 

He sleeps deeply, still exhausted from his long day, and wakes early. His first thought is of Hannibal, wondering if he is still chained in the dog yard. Though the days are warm and clear, the nights are still frigid cold. He misses the warmth of sharing his pallet, and a sympathetic shiver starts between Will's shoulder blades and travels to the tail of his spine. Hannibal had not been wearing a shirt.

He picks a stale loaf of bread off his table, a handful of dried dates from the lidded crock on the counter and goes to his first set of lessons.

The children sense Will's distraction and draw him from it, plying him with demands and questions until they feel he is properly engaged.

"Praeceptor, you are as far away today as the clouds," the oldest girl observes. "Is it a _girl_?"

Will shakes his head, though it only serves to convince the children of his conspiracy. Will endures their gentle teasing with a smile and then restores their attention to study. He is certain to focus his own as well.

He bids the children a fond farewell, and allows the girl to push a makeshift bouquet of wildflowers into his hands. It is better that they believe him moonstruck and pining than concern themselves with the truths of the world at their young age. For Will, the theories presented for debate in philosophy were better as only theory.

He cannot resist trying to see Hannibal on the way to the central gardens where he has agreed to meet Margarita. He moves carefully, listening for any sign that Masonus is lurking up ahead. For now, the dogs are quiet. Will rounds the corner, crouching low against the hedge. 

Hannibal is where Will left him - he doesn't appear to have moved. He sits carefully, breathing slowly, with his back to Will's position. The pitcher sits where Will had left it. The urge to take it to Hannibal drives him to take the first step into the yard.

A hand falls onto his shoulder, another clamps over his mouth to muffle his yelp, pulling Will back into cover.

"Will, didn't I warn you?" the voice is Margarita's. Will's heart starts to beat again, and she lets him go so he can face her.

"If my brother catches you in his affairs-" she jerks her chin in Hannibal's direction. "You'll find you _become_ one of them. Am I clear?"  
-


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Margarita guides will, shaken, to the secluded corner of the gardens where they had last studied together. He follows silently, wondering if she will punish or scold him. He hopes she is not as harsh as her brother, beneath a more disarming exterior. She composes her skirts carefully before taking a seat, using the motion as a final delay to gather her thoughts.
> 
> "He won't kill that man," she says, though it doesn't ease Will's fears the way it might otherwise.
> 
> "I know him," Will answers, softly. "He'll kill _himself_ to avoid bending."

6.

Margarita guides Will, shaken, to the secluded corner of the gardens where they had last studied together. He follows silently, wondering if she will punish or scold him. He hopes she is not as harsh as her brother, beneath a more disarming exterior. She composes her skirts carefully before taking a seat, using the motion as a final delay to gather her thoughts.

"He won't kill that man," she says, though it doesn't ease Will's fears the way it might otherwise.

"I know him," Will answers, softly. "He'll kill _himself_ to avoid bending."

Margarita looks up at Will, and for a moment he sees no pity on her features, no compassion for the inflexible. He wonders how much she has bent to survive in a household with Masonus ever at hand. Then she softens a little, as if remembering her use for compassion.

"He'll bend," she sighs. "If he'd do it sooner, Mason would lose interest. It doesn't' matter, he'd find another to turn his attentions to. Will, don't get involved. You may own yourself for now, but my family could change that, if they wanted to."

Will does not take it for an idle threat. He pulls his lower lip between his teeth, in stubborn consideration. Margarita sees his hesitation and pats the stone bench next to her.

Will sits down and pulls their study materials from his bag, his thoughts heavy and thick with concern. Margarita produces her wax tablet from her bag with her notes from the previous lesson. Her handwriting is cultured and neat - and for the first time Will wonders what had become of her previous tutor. He has a deep suspicion, and it's then he begins to understand the danger of his situation. Margarita had warned him _before_ she'd discovered he wanted to help Hannibal.

He is only compounding the trouble that he is already in. It almost solidifies his resolve; he will not abandon Margarita's studies, and he will not abandon Hannibal. He has thrown his stone in the well, he might as well drop the boulder in after it. 

"What will happen to Hannibal?" he asks, his hands full of parchment.

Margarita sighs. She looks up at Will, measuring the benefits of a comforting lie or the blunt truth. Will knows better than to make any arguments for what he wants, she will only sway herself. 

"My brother will get bored of his 'dog' and elevate him to some new torture," Margarita says. "But not before he's satisfied that Hannibal has embraced the place he's been put."

Will absorbs the dire sentence quietly. Margarita eases the papers out of Will's hands, his mind going still under the weight, the pressure of feeling utterly helpless while his friend suffers.

It will only get worse before it gets better, and for now, they must both survive. Will needs time to find a way to fix it.

He leaves the lesson bereft, going careful along the path, and Margarita escorts him from the grounds. She is only trying to protect him, but he cannot stand not knowing. The dogs are barking when Will leaves, howling and yelping in excited terror, and Will feels the sound of it as if it were their teeth in his skin.

It wakes a hatred in him that he had not known he could possess.

He gathers what he can that night, food and good clean water, a spare Toga, all of it making a small bundle beneath his tunic. His plan is half formed and desperate - a dishonor to his patronus and dangerous to him and Hannibal both.

Will goes by back ways to the estate, in the full cover of darkness, his mind an agitated white buzz of adrenaline and determination. When he slips into the dog yard, he prays the animals will be quiet.

The dogs are asleep in their cages, exhausted and wary. Will fears he will find the yard empty, that Hannibal will have vanished again, beyond his reach. There is a crumpled shadow by the pole in the yard, however, and his hopes raise. Will eases into the open space, wary of traps, wary of being caught so clearly intending an escape. It would spell execution for him and Hannibal both. 

The form is very still. Bent and wrong somehow. Will's heart speeds and he crosses the space in a rush.

It is not Hannibal - instead, the body of a massive war dog lies crumpled, shattered and unmoving. The animal's jaws are bloody, the ground below stained with it. The dog is stiff with death, the neck broken in some ferocious struggle. The short chain that had been around Hannibal's neck hangs free now, unused.

Will sits back on his haunches, covering his mouth in shock, trying to ward off the meaty scent of drying blood. All of his teaching has not prepared him for the monstrosities of man, now laid parted out before him. He can smell the filthy animal, the heavy odor of urine and feces from the surrounding cages, the stale sweat in the air, and the high piercing howls still echo in his mind.

_The chain is unlocked. Hannibal is not here. There is a dead dog._

He knows the methods to make the facts line up, but he is not sure he wants to. Will descends a level deeper. 

_Mason was trying to reduce Hannibal to a dog._

Will bites his lip. He opens his eyes and looks at the animals in the cages - scarred brutes. Torn ears, ripped muzzles, some with wounds only half healed. Hannibal had won his first dog fight, forced to behave like a beast or to die like one. There was no outcome, Will thinks, that would not have pleased Masonus. Each meant pain and blood, either meant defying some part of himself.  
Only one option left Hannibal the hope of revenge, and Will suspected Masonus well knew how to make use of that dark motivator. He touches the massive, cold head of the dog gently. The animal had lived in agony and ferocity. The philosophy of animals was simple: they were the sum reflection of what was invested. It could not be blamed for Masonus' poison.

He leaves the dog and rises, looking up toward the massive villa. Having won Masonus' favor, whether he desired it or not, Hannibal will have been given his just place - inside. Will cannot reach him there, not with his small plan of escape.

In the dark, the columns look like the grinning teeth of a mad god. He snarls in answer, hating to find himself here and safe by virtue of fortune only. He has to get to Hannibal. 

Though he can take the dimensions of the house, Will cannot picture the interior. It is too massive, too many windows are screened with thick, tall hedges. He will have to get inside, will have to contrive a way to explore. None of the options that suggest themselves to him are appealing. He gathers his small parcel of goods and retreats. 

When he at last makes it to his welcoming pallet, the moon is fading and the first pink light of dawn is showing. He eases into a fitful sleep, and dreams of a human voice joining the eerie chorus of dog howls. He cannot tell if it is his own or Hannibal's.

He drags himself, exhausted, through the next day. He forgets points, loses track of the thread of conversation. He drifts through, and even the efforts of the children cannot make him smile.

It cannot go on. Will resolves himself to focus properly on Margarita's lessons. In daylight, the estate seems less threatening. Will wonders if he could not contrive a way to get inside on the premise of looking for Margarita, and get himself out again on a careful guise of ignorance.

Instead, she meets him at the entrance to the estate grounds, wary of finding him wandering.

"Margarita," he asks, feeling somewhat tired and defeated. "Why do we not study inside?"

She shakes her head and leads him toward the rose garden. "I contracted you, we will learn where it is safe."

"Surely your parents would protect-" it is a mistake. She does not react, but Will feels her closing her doors.

He is walking with her on the surface of something very dark and very deep. It is not even so solid as ice, but as precarious as wet papyrus. He has to get through it, but knows he must also keep Margarita's trust, must not imply her involvement.

She rounds the corner to their secluded spot in the gardens, a careful collection of rose bushes just beginning to bud. She goes stiff and still, freezing in her tracks.

A man sits indolently on the stone bench, reclined into a posture of ownership that is calculated to look like repose. 

"There you are Margie," his voice is thick with pleasure at his own cleverness for catching his sister in the act. From his tunic, he produces her wax tablet. "I thought, when I found this; 'now _who_ could be putting all these noble ideas into my little sister's beautiful head."

She says nothing, but her hand creeps toward her bag and she must determine that her tablet is the one in Masonus' grip. A look of slow fury buries itself behind the stony planes of her face.

Masonus unfolds himself from the bench and Will realizes his hands are red to the wrists with half dried blood. He is transfixed by it - by the smears of gore he leaves on the wooden frame of Margarita's wax tablet.

"I hired a tutor," Margarita's posture is very straight and still, and Will realizes he is nearly cowering behind her. He steps away enough to be visible, since he is as captured as she. He could abandon her - leave the grounds and the whole broken family behind and pray they never find him again.

Something about Margarita's frozen-rabbit posture keeps him there. She does not want to fear her brother, but he has made himself her greatest fear.

Masonus' eyes turn toward Will and then stops - he drinks Will's appearance with his teeth visible. It is not a smile but a threat. An _interest_. The silence stretches and Masonus' eyes shine, pleased madness - he is almost handsome, his eyes blue and deep and hypnotic. 

His leer stretches into a smile, in a motion like a snake stretching its jaws wide to devour something larger than itself. "So you did, Margie."

Will backs up a step, his breath still in his chest. Anger suffuses him at the weakness and he berates himself. Will firms his resolve and stands up to Masonus.

Masonus passes the tablet back to Margarita, and steps toward Will, pleased by his defiance. he offers one red-brown flaking hand. 

"I'm Masonus," he says, and when Will balks, he laughs. "Oh, my pardon. I was just feeding the _dogs_ , you see. They do get so _demanding_ when they're hungry."

He tucks his bloody hands out of sight. "Are you Greek?"

"Athenian," Will answers. Masonus laughs at his pride, and Will refuses to feel shame for it.

"Perfect. I only want the best for my unfortunate sister," Masonus eases his attention off of Will, and back to her. It is as if a weight has lifted from his chest, he tries not to gasp in a breath. 

"Don't be rude to your tutor, Margie," Mason scolds, "invite him _inside_ , so you can learn in comfort."

Margarita does not answer or argue. Silence seems her best defense, and Will echoes it unconsciously. 

"We're having a party this evening," Masonus continues, in a falsely sweet tone of remembrance. "I've just gotten a new fighting bitch, and I was so pleased I thought I'd invite some old society _dogs_ over."

Pleasure seems to suffuse Masonus and he forgets the others in his presence. A wicked thought is playing in his minds eye, a pure evil fantasy that itches beneath his skin for realization. "Dogs are no good until you breed them, you know."

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are with the real chapter. Sorry for the gentle joke this morning! I couldn't help myself...   
> hope you can forgive me!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Masonus guides them through the great hall - as a lesson to them both, Will thinks. The walls of the room are painted with images of men hunting boar, spanish vermillion on their shields and in great splashes to show where blood- that of men and animals - is falling. At the center of the room, a great empty device. A pillory of sorts. Will hasn't seen its like before, but his mind shows him the nature of the restraint, shows how little use to fight it.

Masonus guides them through the great hall - as a lesson to them both, Will thinks. The walls of the room are painted with images of men hunting boar, spanish vermillion on their shields and in great splashes to show where blood- that of men and animals - is falling. At the center of the room, a great empty device. A pillory of sorts. Will hasn't seen its like before, but his mind shows him the nature of the restraint, shows how little use to fight it.

He hopes Hannibal makes Masonus pay in blood to get him into it, though he knows he shouldn't. Hannibal's ferocity - Will remembers well how wild he had been when first brought to Iohannes' estate - seems to be checked by the knowledge his actions will affect every slave in a household. 

Will does not want to learn how he knew that for a slave to kill a citizen meant execution for every slave in his household - involved or not. There must be some real goad in it for Hannibal, Will understands. He seems painfully aware of it.

In this place, Will wonders if death would not be a mercy if it means Masonus' downfall. He allows that he cannot possibly _know_.

Masonus ushers them by the room not so quickly they cannot imagine up terrible things. Servants arrange a feast around the cruel centerpiece. Will and Margarita carry on, find an unused sitting room in luxurious decor, and Will stumbles distractedly through one of Socrates' dialogs with Margarita, so shaken that halfway through she puts her hand once, timidly, briefly over his own. It is very small comfort.

He does not see and cannot find any sign of Hannibal, even as they walk to the door. He hesitates there with Margarita, between massive stone columns like snarling teeth. 

"How many?" he asks, as if the _quantity_ will mean the difference in the violation, in the endurance, in how likely Hannibal is to survive. He was the centerpiece and final course of the meal, and to none attendant would he be human. None would remember the color of his eyes in the low light or find the darker color at the roots of his hair, none would even hear his voice if he stayed strong, Will hopes. They would _try_.

"At least twenty guests," Margarita says, her eyes dull and far away. "My brother finds a lot who enjoy his dinners in Rome."

Will's stomach turns over. He cannot fathom it, knows only that he will come to understand it through the changes wrought on Hannibal. His belly feels stuffed with a cold, immovable bolder such that he wonders if he will ever eat again.

Home, he does not sleep. He sits up, deep in his own thoughts, until the very concept of rest loses meaning, and in the earliest hours he wonders how much it could possibly take to burn down the entire city.

By cruel fate he is free the next day, free to drag himself from the pallet where he had not slept and wonder, in the pre-dawn, if Hannibal's torment had even yet stopped. Will cannot bear it. He pulls himself up and knows that if he must, he will throw _himself_ at Masonus' mercy to ease the pain visited on Hannibal.

Will pulls on his toga and straightens his back, wondering how he _ever_ thought to hide this in secrets and darkness. To protect them, he'd thought. To limit joy so no one could see it and pull it from them. It hadn't mattered. He misses acutely, on the walk over, all of the nights that he had denied that might have brought some comforting memory now to Hannibal. He misses the chance to reassure him that whatever the distance and difficulty - well, those were romantic concepts, as unsuited to Hannibal as himself.

He had been foolish with what Hannibal had given him, certain it would always be there later if only he hoarded it just so.

At the door, the servants do not try to stop him; perhaps under some order, or perhaps now so uncaring they would not warn any off of the trap they might find themselves in within the mansion. Honey for flies. They are busy cleaning the main hall, clearing the wreckage of dinner, discarded food from the fine mosaic laid into the floor. Hannibal has not been removed.

He is strapped, head, hands, and ankles, bent lewdly into the device but held standing. Someone has half thrown a woven blanket over him, as if to cover the sight of something filthy and unpleasant. Will's breath catches and he freezes. He wants, with all his being, to reject this. To run, even as Hannibal might want him to, from this. To forget everything about him but the way he fought with his sword flashing and tireless, endless spars with Marcus. To remember only his growl at Will's ear and how he would never use more of his strength with Will than was necessary.

As much as he cannot expunge these pasts from his mind, he knows he cannot, either, escape this vision. He climbs up onto the platform and does not think Hannibal even registers his presence. His eyes are open but very far away, his expression focused but slack, as if he were listening to beautiful music that he only half remembered. He has bruised himself against the restraints in every imaginable way, dark ringed circles at his wrists, his ankles, in layers now on his neck. Now his body is sagging, relaxed.

"Hannibal," Will tries, concerned. It seems cruel to revive him to _this_ , but Will needs to see his eyes reignite, his attention return. He needs to know that Hannibal survived this. 

Hannibal does not so much as blink. Will adjusts the casually thrown blanket into a more deliberate cover for his naked skin. His hair is caked stiff and Will does not want to consider with what. It is a question he does not need to let himself ask before he asks himself how to clean it off. He finds a cloth napkin, a half empty jug of water that he smells carefully before he dips the cloth in, wetting it and lifting it toward Hannibal's face.

Hannibal bites him. _Hard_.

The rag hits the floor with a disgusting, wet sound that echoes in the hall and then Hannibal gives one hard, sinuous heave of his body in the restraints, eyes burning angry but still distant while Will clutches the area just behind his thumb, numbed with shock and pain.

He yanks the cloth off the floor fiercely, plunging it back into the water and wringing it out. "Hannibal, you aren't an animal. _I_ know you aren't."

Finally his voice seems to penetrate, but recognition only brings fire and hateful silence. Hannibal lets Will clean his face then, at least without biting him - he is in little position to resist otherwise, or Will thinks he might have.

The water in the pitcher is filthy when Will finishes, dropping the rag into its milky depths and leaving it for servants to carry away. Determined, he starts looking for the releases on the device. He manages to get Hannibal's ankles free, carefully blinding himself to some of the picture, and Hannibal shifts stiffly, slowly, in clear agony.

Looking for similar catches at the yoke that holds Hannibal's head and hands, Will finds another surprise - a closed metal collar welded hard in place around Hannibal's neck. The metal has cut and abraded as he struggled, and he can see a heavy, flat tag affixed.

He has never seen a citizen collar a slave like a dog in Rome. It angers him.

_I belong to Masonus. I have fled. Catch me and you will be rewarded with a gold coin._

He starts to twist the tag, wanting to break it free of the collar when an icy laugh stops him, cold and sweating. A hand falls on his shoulder, pulling him back, away from Hannibal.

"I won't reward you for something that isn't lost, Praetor," Masonus chuckles, but there is a warning, a dangerous, mad anger in his eyes that shows his smile as false as the mask that players wear in tragedies.

"He's a man," Will argues foolishly, "Not a dog. Not even dogs deserve this."

His anger seems to soothe Masonus, a slow change from upset to gleeful realization. He has connected Will's compassion, the sudden snarling anger on Hannibal behind him. Masonus _knows_ they are more than strangers in the night and it _excites_ him. Will feels his hopes of a bright future dim suddenly, and it is the first moment he is truly aware the he ever had them. 

-


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He is exactly what I say he is and no more," Masonus says, casting a cold eye over Hannibal. He reaches out, yanking the blanket away to reveal him naked, dirty, used. Hannibal's eyes close once, slowly, and when they open his mind is somewhere else. Masonus slaps him, displeased with the retreat, but only faintly distracted from his new discovery of a connection.
> 
> "And right now he is barely a _rock_ ," Masonus laments, turning back to Will.

"He is exactly what I say he is and no more," Masonus says, casting a cold eye over Hannibal. He reaches out, yanking the blanket away to reveal him naked, dirty, used. Hannibal's eyes close once, slowly, and when they open his mind is somewhere else. Masonus slaps him, displeased with the retreat, but only faintly distracted from his new discovery of a connection.

"And right now he is barely a _rock_ ," Masonus laments, turning back to Will.

"But come, Praetor... I _love_ philosophy. Come and bathe like a real citizen and you may make your argument that this," Mason's gesture encompasses all that Hannibal is at current: the stains at his feet, the forced submission, filthy and naked and at the total mercy of another man, "is deserving of something else."

There aren't words enough to describe how little Will wants to disrobe himself anywhere near Masonus. Will is not sure if he can offer any sort of argument to Masonus' mind, but he can spare Hannibal an hour - two perhaps - of direct attention. He knows himself a bait and fulcrum both - Masonus will try to lever Hannibal against him, and him against Hannibal.

Will thinks - he _hopes_ \- that they are stronger together than apart. He does not think Hannibal wants his help, he does not, certainly, want to be seen to _need_ help. In this case, Will disregards his wishes.

"Let him down at least, and then I will agree to your terms," Will tries to sound firm, to put himself on even footing with Masonus long enough to at least get one demand.

"Well," Masonus says, considering Hannibal. He casts his eyes over the other servants in the room, looking for one to do his bidding. He finds a slave who is doing her best to fade into the very mosaic she is scrubbing and aims a kick her way to get her attention. Will winces.

"Go and get Claudius," he barks at her. "Remind him that the dog bites."

They wait, Masonus perhaps knowing Will is more likely to believe what he sees himself. It is a trial to keep his hands to himself, to keep them from trying to soothe Hannibal somehow, warm on his skin with no intent to hurt. 

Claudius is a large man, unsubtly strong. Will supposes that to a man with tastes like Masonus, the ability to overpower his prey - if not by direct means himself - is important. Claudius is clearly the method by which Masonus' will is done. He carries a heavy, black muzzle of leather and straps it roughly over Hannibal's mouth and nose. Will can see healing, tooth-spaced scabs on the man's forearms and hands and supposes it is as much humiliation as practical. 

Hannibal, instead of resisting when the restraints are removed, sags instantly to the ground. He makes himself difficult to carry by method of refusing to hold tension in his own body, and Will hopes he will not be repaid with violence once Claudius is out of sight.

Masonus gives an exaggerated dusting of his hands - today, free of blood. "Now, what a tiresome mess. Let's go get clean, hm? We can talk about who is washing whose back." 

"Surely," Will says, following, "you have many slaves to see to your back."

He does not want to touch Masonus, does not want Masonus to touch _him_ , but Will understands that a careful diversion of his mind might lure him, for a time, from the twisted diversions of his body. He hopes that being a freedman will protect him from becoming an immediate victim. 

Masonus would toy with him, but not lunge until his teeth were sure to close on the jugular. He leads Will down into the warm depths of his lair, and Will realizes that the house has its own heated bath, has a team of slaves working in the hypocaust below.

Will's nervous sweat is joined by steam in the antechamber, and Masonus undresses without a hint of shame. His body isn't strong, his muscles undeveloped from a sheltered upbringing - he had never served his term in the military - but neither is he soft, and he knows it.

"Come inside," he tells Will, and the doors to the chamber look solid and heavy. 

Will steps past the doors, and two bald, bare slaves push them closed to seal in the steam. Inside, the bath is opulent, a massive pool heated from below to steaming. Masonus does not immediately lower himself in, instead spreading his arms and legs wide, bare body displayed and ready, back straight and chin high. The slaves apply a sweet smelling oil, beginning a slow process of cleaning in the Roman style.

Will realizes, as they move, that they are the cruelest form of eunuch, cut front and back with unnecessary exuberance. Will drags his eyes up, away, as they scrape the oil off Masonus. It hits the floor filthy and pink, dripping from their strigils in long trails. 

Will shucks his toga and tunic, and gets into the water while Masonus is distracted. It is hot near to scalding and Will flushes pink and stinging, feeling especially tender at his wrists and ankles. 

Masonus makes a lewd, pleasurable groan as they clean his skin, and Will wonders how the slaves resist stabbing him someplace vulnerable with the strigils. Will is usually peaceable, and even he feels the desire - linked to the prevention of further damage to Hannibal.

"Now," Masonus says, purring with pleasure as he stalks into the hot water, taking his time to give Will the best view he can. There is nothing Will wants to see, so he looks away, running his eyes over the murals on the walls - showing depictions of gods visiting mortals. 

"You said you had an argument to make?" Masonus prompts. Will pulls his eyes away from an image of Leda beset, fighting a massive swan. When he looks back, Masonus looks irritated with Will's distraction. Will focuses, knowing that to lose Masonus' attention is dangerous.

"Philosophy argues that a greater man does not reduce others," Will begins, starting a foundation.

"Are you saying that _thing_ that bit you in my main hall is a man?" Masonus challenges, unseating Will from even one easy step.

"A man can defend himself and still be a man," Will says. "Our legionares defend us and they are not animals."

"But if it barks like a dog - and fights dogs - and bites like a dog," Masonus says, his tone brightly pleased before it drops lower, menacing. "If you can _buy_ it like a dog."

"A slave is not a dog," Will says, careful.

"No!" Masonus laughs, "but they're not much better."

Will knows, then, that he cannot ever hope to appeal to Masonus. All he can expect to do is entertain him for a while. He knows, too, how best to do it.

"He's not a dog, and he is my friend," Will appeals, looking madness in the eyes - they are wild, excited. Masonus takes the admission of friendship with pupils dilated open and a curving, manic smile.

"He doesn't _deserve_ -" Will starts. Masonus claps his hands sharply, pleased.

"I don't do things because they're _deserved_ , Praetor," Masonus crows, making a broad splashing motion in the water that sends hot drops flying in all directions. Some touch Will's face.

"I do them because _I_ deserve to enjoy myself," he finishes, tone booming in the enclosed space. 

"And if I asked you?"

Masonus' interest flares, his eyes light, dangerous. "Why wouldn't you ask me?"

Will supposes that an appeal on behalf of his own compassion is helpless. He gathers his hands in supplication. _He_ , at least, can sacrifice some of his pride. 

"If I _beg_ you?" Will asks, carefully, making no effort to hide his desperation. It will only make his appeal stronger. "No more parties, no more dog fights?"

Masonus takes the hook, though Will can't be certain if he can possibly hold onto the other end of the line. Masonus is _interested_ , and the full intensity of that is terrifying.

"I can see a stay of such entertainments for say - a sevenday," Masonus says. "After all, some recovery time is advisable..."

His tone is thoughtful, twisting, and then his attention snaps back from wherever his mind has strayed. "Then, Praetor, if you'd like to come back and make another plea on his behalf - your canine companion _does_ have a surplus of pride."

Will swallows, hesitating. Masonus hoists himself out of the water again, waiting for the slaves to come and burnish him dry. Smiling and pleased, knowing that Will is going to fold, that he has all of the power - and that position is the one that most pleases Masonus.

-


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between Margarita's lessons and Masonus' demands on his time, Will feels he spends more time at the estate than his own humble apartment. It is not an improvement.

Between Margarita's lessons and Masonus' demands on his time, Will feels he spends more time at the estate than his own humble apartment. It is not an improvement.

It is a vast, winding place that terrifies Will. Every corner he turns seems to bring one more horror to his awareness. Some are forthcoming with their promises - torture devices and tie downs. Some are very subtle, beautiful rooms that have solid bones. Anchor points to which ties or chains can be affixed, chairs that attach to the floor, windows that never opened.

Will wonders if they have any functional purpose aside from torment - a tantalizing view of a world outside the small, dark universes that come to exist in these spaces before they burn out.

Masonus is generous with one thing - he lets Will see Hannibal frequently, enjoying the pain in causes both of them. Will must see Hannibal, though he knows his visits are far from welcome, must know that Hannibal is alive and still fighting. 

He hasn't spoken - to Will or by Masonus' lamentations, to anybody - in the weeks since the party. Some of the distance has faded from his eyes as the marks given to him have faded, those that come new are only bruises, the restraints he wears seeming gentle in comparison. 

He has been put to work in the hypocaust beneath the bathing rooms, keeping the fires fed so that the pool upstairs stays warm. Will thinks it's on purpose so that Hannibal can clearly hear the increasing lengths that Masonus drags Will to in order to buy Hannibal's lenient treatment. The escalation of begging that Will prays is enough to keep Hannibal safe until he heals.

Eventually, it will lose its appeal, and Masonus will go back to his old entertainments. He can't pay this way forever, and the next step is too much to contemplate.

He finds Hannibal dirty, in the oppressive heat of the hypocaust. He is stripped to the waist, his skin coal dark and dripping sweat. He looks up when Will enters, saying nothing. Hannibal plunges his shovel into the pile of coal, and then upends it into the fire.

"Hannibal," Will says, calling out for an answer and only half hoping he'll get one. Hannibal's back is striped with dark bruises from a lash, whip marks. But it is only physical pain and Hannibal bears up under it as if it is nourishment in the wake of his humiliation.

"Hannibal, what can I do?" Will asks.

The shovel goes back into the coal, a sinuous motion that looks nearly as effortless as his swordplay once had, and Hannibal throws it onto the fire. The heat is sweltering, and Will can see that working the long shifts has taken its toll. 

"Hannibal, Will repeats again, helplessly, "I can't help you with this unless you-"

Hannibal jams the shovel noisily into the coal pile and leaves it, rounding on Will with his lip pulled back in a faint, fading snarl. His eyes are angry but alive, present.

"I didn't ask for your help," Hannibal growls, his voice dry with disuse. "You should have kept your pride."

Will's anger wells up just as sharp and sudden in answer to Hannibal's, his frustration arching and snapping like a bow bent too far. "What good does my pride do either of us?"

"Giving a little is not enough for Masonus," Hannibal tells Will, posture an angry line. "He will demand it all and enjoy knowing he is getting it by force."

"He has a very compelling lever," Will says, miserably.

Hannibal does not answer. The fire roars, filling the space with stifling heat even without Hannibal actively feeding it. They both watch each other then, silent and serious. Aware of the void growing between them, aware of how easily the chasm has formed. It may have always been there, with thin ground covering it over. Now, they can either stay on their opposite sides or start to build bridges.

It would have been easier to build them in peacetime, when both hands reached out to make the treacherous steps easier. Will suspects that now, he'll be throwing lines and hoping they might be caught. 

Hannibal does not take his eyes off of Will until he finally feels the weight of it and must look down.

"I can't stand to see it happen," Will says. "I can't look away and let it happen."

Hannibal reaches across the space, his hands are rough and dirty, nails broken with the hard work and poor nutrition. Curling his fingertips beneath Will's chin, he lifts Will's gaze back up toward him. There is a spark of his old softness in his expression, beneath the anger and helplessness. 

"Be blind," Hannibal commands of him, as if it it is that easy, "not brave."

Will lifts his chin away from the touch, stepping toward Hannibal rather than away. He gets his arms around Hannibal's neck and pulls them together, heedless of the grime and sweat. He leans into the embrace, feeling the metal tag from Hannibal's collar press into his cheek.

For a few moments, he allows Will the contact, though he does not return the embrace. He pushes Will away, then, one hand on his belly and firm pressure until Will steps back.

He won't be enticed to say anything else, Will thinks. Hannibal takes the shovel up again, goes back to work. Will makes his way back out, aware of the smears left incriminatingly on his tunic. He must pass through the baths where Masonus still soaks, smirking. His small eyes light up vivid blue as Will passes, covered in evidence of contact.

Masonus smiles, but says nothing. He has already made Will get down onto his knees today, and Will thinks he might find himself prostrate the next time he wants to appease Masonus. After that, nothing will soothe the man's itch. Nothing _given_.

He no longer thinks that his free status will prevent Masonus from _taking_ , either. Will's only small comfort in that event is that Phylia knows his clients and will seek him if he fails to appear with his dues. She would likely be too late, but even Masonus might find her to be formidable.

At the door, Margarita attracts his attention, standing in wait just at the top of the stairs down into the garden. She leans against a pillar, looking straight out into the gardens. Her back is very stiff.

Will pauses next to her, unsure what to say. He cannot comfort her - in fact, he finds himself unable to comfort anyone who truly needs it of late. Instead, he can only hesitate and listen, his eyes cast out over the false, masking beauty of the hedges and blooms. Will knows now their perfection is not an act of pride or love. They do not tend the gardens so they will be beautiful.

They hide behind them and punish the slaves if they do not keep them perfect. Screening travesty and cruelty behind the efforts of those they are cruel to. It is like whipping a tired horse for not holding its head high, when all it has known is the lash.

Margarita takes a breath, but does not look at Will.

"He is planning another feast," she doesn't need to elaborate, "and if he cannot convince _you_ to be the attraction - he has no qualms about serving the same main course."


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is a truth that consumes Will, the knowledge like a burning coal in his belly along with one certain conviction: he must stop it. He cannot convince Masonus, and he cannot hope to convince Hannibal to fold, even under such a threat.

It is a truth that consumes Will, the knowledge like a burning coal in his belly along with one certain conviction: he must stop it. He cannot convince Masonus, and he cannot hope to convince Hannibal to fold, even under such a threat.

It is a forward rolling wheel, a gathering momentum that Will cannot divert or turn aside. It must either be allowed to run on, as horses gone mad in their traces in the coliseum, or must be brought - by violent application of equal and opposing force - to a stop.

What was the origin of such a force? What could possibly stand up to Masonus?

Will thinks Hannibal - healthy and whole with a sword in his hand and no fear of consequence - could do it. Barring this, he must find a way. Margarita's warning has given him an urgency, whereas Masonus seems content to play his cards close to his chest, to let Will grovel and beg and then not uphold his end of the deal.

There is little surprise when, two days later after a lesson in mathematics with Margarita, Masonus comes to gather him from the study. They do not go to the baths, but instead Masonus leads Will deep into the back hallways of the mansion, toward the kitchens.

"You haven't come to enjoy my fine baths these last few days," Masonus observes, revealing his interest in Will's continued interaction. He still wants - well, both the submission and the chance to break something that wouldn't submit.

"I didn't think our conversations were productive," Will says, though he knows he's pushing the line.

"Well," Masonus says, his tone drawing out long into a drawl that bleeds indulgence. "Does that mean you've been dissatisfied with the results?"

"Results?" Will questions, thinking of Hannibal kept filthy and poorly fed, spared only the very worst treatment, and even that only a reprieve before his body is made available again.

"I have been very restrained," Masonus purrs. He swings open the door into the heat of the kitchen violently, catching a slave on the other side with the panel and brushing past the toppled man and the chaos of scattered dishes and ruined food he has caused without even a second glance.

"The same level of result has demanded an increasing input," Will answers, philosophically, pausing to offer the dazed slave a hand up - the man shies from him, having forgotten that benevolent touch exists. "It is, in banking terms, a poor investment."

Masonus is not convinced by his cold facade. He moves deeper into the kitchen, and the space in the middle is bare but filthy, stained and dark. Above, an array of hooks hang from the sturdy support beams. Will recognizes that they butcher carcasses here, the floor stained in rings of rust and brown, old blood and new. The sight of Masonus standing so carelessly amidst the trappings of death leaves Will with a cold feeling. 

He does not want to see Hannibal hung - as a slaughtered animal - at Masonus' mercy. The image comes easily and clear to his mind.

"Help me," Masonus commands, with no thought that it may be possible for Will to refuse. He stoops, gathering up a basket that drips and oozes, gesturing for Will to take up a gory clay container, a massive pitcher that pours the reek of sour, stale blood against his nostrils when Will hefts it in both arms.

It sloshes, wobbling sickeningly in his grasp. Will wishes his need to obey an authoritative tone was not so deeply ingrained. He is sure the jar is full of half-caked blood, the disgusting remnants of the morning’s butchery, much as the basket in Masonus' hands. 

They carry the blood and offals out a back door into the garden, following the path.

"So you no longer consider your friend a good investment?" Masonus challenges, conversationally, as if he was not smearing himself with blood, soaking his arms and the chest of his tunic. 

"He is not in charge of the results," Will dares, continuing, "I am not investing directly, or the worth would be equal."

Masonus laughs wildly, and from a distance, the dogs begin to bark. Will realizes then, the reason for their journey into the gardens with the scraps. Feeding time.

"Am I such a bad broker?" Masonus crows, with a dangerous undertone to his mirth. 

"I have kept my promises," Masonus reminds, when Will is silent. Thin and wan as those promises have been. "Though I have been bored to tears to do so. What good is a dog - or a slave - if you can't _play_ with it?"

They reach the kennels then, and the sudden frenzied cacophony curbs further talk. The dogs bark and yelp, lunging at the metal doors, gnawing frantically at the bars in a madness that Will thinks he can understand. There is no exercise for their minds and bodies but anger and pain. No stimulus for their starvation but this.

It drives them slathering mad when Masonus comes into view, and he delights in it. The yard in the center is empty, nothing chained to the short post where he had left Hannibal. Masonus stands there in the bare, sandy space painted in gore and reveling in the frantic agony laid out before him.

Though the dogs throw themselves at the bars and doors of their kennels, they shrink back snarling when Masonus approaches - all but a few. These, he kicks or slaps, but then feeds anyway, rewarding their ferocity. For those poor animals that stay out of his reach, Masonus instructs Will to fill their bowls with only the clotting blood. 

"They'll risk anything if you keep them hungry enough," Masonus chuckles. "After a while they have to decide whether they embrace whatever they're given or they starve."

He unfolds a long pile of intestines into the cage of a large, fierce animal. It looks to be the same blood stock as the dog Hannibal had fought and killed. "I think this same method would be very effective on Hannibal."

Will thinks that it is the first time he has heard Masonus use Hannibal's name, and it's that which gives Will insight: he is fishing for a reaction, for some specific agony. Masonus is making sure Will is paying attention to him, goading Will.

Margarita's words come back to him. Masonus wants Will to volunteer himself, some part of that concept is like sticky nectar on Masonus' tongue. 

"It hasn't worked yet," Will says instead, knowing that a sacrifice is not a solution. Perhaps it would spare Hannibal from this danger, but Will does not doubt he would be made to watch, to experience it anyway. Will is not as strong as Hannibal.

They would never forgive each other for it.

"He hasn't been hungry enough yet," Masonus answers, as he has intended to all along, but Will detects a threatening hint of disappointment. 

"And you think you want to see what he is capable of when he _is_?" Will asks, tired of playing a game of civility with someone utterly uncivil.

Masonus looks only briefly surprised to find that Will has teeth, but he smooths himself over quickly, gathering up his empty, dripping basket. "Why _Praetor_ , are you _concerned_ for me?"

Will does not answer, but passes the empty jug back into Masonus' hands, jamming it into his basket and taking his leave without daring to look back and see how his rudeness is received. He wishes he could brush it off as easily as he seems to. A frantic howling and yammering raises behind him. Will can hear Masonus pounding the cage bars. He is stirring up chaos, anger and fear, so he can reassure himself of his power - he does not yet dare his extend his reach toward Will. 

The idea creeps in behind his worry that Masonus will turn his frustration on Hannibal. It is a small idea at first, a notion of how frustrated the animals in their cages are, how their howling seems to reach into his own soul and echo it. 

The real meat of the plan - the true possibility of it - does not reveal itself to his mind until it is dark and quiet, until Will lays still on his pallet, dedication against the dark of night.

Will wonders, with idle philosophical consideration, what Masonus would do if there were no bars between him and the dogs. Will thinks, though he does not know for certain, that even those who had cowered from him would not fail to find their courage. 

It has a beautiful poetry to it, a simplicity - more than a few weaknesses. Will must not be caught near the cages, must not leave any implication that a slave might have done so. It is pointless to kill Masonus if the blame falls on any of his household slaves - the punishment would be death for all of them. 

What Will must do is find some way to manufacture it as an accident, and then pray that no one will look too hard. He thinks, perhaps, Margarita will not be inclined to question the luck of a natural accident too closely, if it would so rid her of her most persistent obstacle. He has seen the resentment in her eyes, held in bridle with tight reins to command even her rage to silence. He will at least have one supporter.

-


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will sees the results of his defiance written on Hannibal's skin when next he goes to the mansion. He is on display for Will's benefit,anchored in place in one of the many small hells built on the grounds. Heavy chains hold him kneeling, with the thick leather muzzle in place over his mouth. Held this way, Hannibal does not look up as Will passes. Will does not call out and ask him to.

Will sees the results of his defiance written on Hannibal's skin when next he goes to the mansion. He is on display for Will's benefit,anchored in place in one of the many small hells built on the grounds. Heavy chains hold him kneeling, with the thick leather muzzle in place over his mouth. Held this way, Hannibal does not look up as Will passes. Will does not call out and ask him to.

He memorizes the stripes of bruises on Hannibal's bare shoulders and moves past, counting each like a brick, a stone with which to fortify his resolve. Will piles them up together, and lifts his chin a little higher. The plan is solidifying in his mind. 

Will has come early today, looking at the cages as if making a study of the dogs. No one sees him - eyes here did not look at things that weren't an immediate threat. There was little time to worry about what might be coming, it was the most they could do to worry about what was happening already.

He thinks, if he is very careful and very lucky, he can cut the locks on several strategic cages. It's a gamble that the dogs won't lunge at them too early, that they will attack Mason instead of running, a gamble that they will finish the job.

Long odds are better than none, and this was no Grecian game table. The bets here are not coins but lives. He holds the secret of his plans tight against his chest.

"The party will be in four days," Margarita tells him, with pity in her eyes. Only a flash and then gone. "So he does not surprise you with the knowledge."

"Thank you," Will says, careful to give no sign. He doesn't have to hide concern, but resolve or determination might give his game away.

She turns away from his thanks, a cool set to her shoulders, a certain void in her eyes.

Will wonders then if it was only fear which has kept her back from taking such a step as he will now. Perhaps she has tried and failed. Masonus has left his scars deeper than skin.

At the end of their lesson - complex mathematics, which she excels at - he hesitates, watching her erase the notes from her wax tablet with careful diligence. 

"Why did you pick me?" Will asks, wondering how, out of all the tutors who had posted services in the square, she had come to him. Fate and Fortune in tandem, perhaps.

She looks at him, and there's a tempest of dislike in her eyes. She resents the question, or perhaps she resents the reasons she has to give. Her truths are not things she cherishes. 

"I thought he wouldn't spoil you immediately if we were caught."

There is a past in those words. A history of destruction of the things Margarita valued, and a subsequent learned care in choosing what she valued. He was something that would be interesting enough to Masonus to avoid immediate removal or destruction.

A shiver threatens, and Will knows the full meaning of her words. Masonus was toying with him, hunting him, and he would not save his own pleasure forever. 

"I would have dismissed you," Margarita says softly. "When the danger was too much."

Will thinks perhaps they are past that point. He wouldn't have gone, not with Hannibal still in danger. Margarita stands up, holding her tablet in both hands.

"Will you stop coming now?"

It's a challenge and a request for forgiveness. Will shakes his head. "Not even if you ordered me to, Margarita."

She offers him a fierce smile, and leaves him to see himself out. When Will passes the room Hannibal had been chained in, it is empty.

He looks neither left nor right as he walks off the grounds. There is a countdown in his mind, four days, three sleepless nights. Will has to pace himself. If he can't make it happen tonight - well, there were two more chances, but not if he isn't careful.

Saving every coin he's made, Will has enough - barely - to get what he needs. He will have to tighten his belt and work more to make his next tribute to Phylia - but it seems distant, far away somewhere. He knows he should plan for it.

There is too much to plan for already. 

Once he sets to work, Will finds his focus. The world excludes itself, becoming only an awareness of his surroundings, a strain to listen for any sign of approach, working by feel to keep his eyes on the snarling dog. Will must risk his hands, working to file the locking ring that keeps the cage door shut from the inside of the bars where it will not show without careful scrutiny.

Masonus is too comfortable in his absolute power to check - and doing so would place him close enough to the dogs to risk danger. 

Will works the long hours in the darkest part of the night, but it isn't enough. It leaves his palms abraded from the file and his fingers aching. He partially severs three locks, but not so far as to give. Will crawls home to sleep, exhausted, and closes his mind carefully to what might be happening to Hannibal. Whatever it was - Will would spare him the worst in two days. 

His mind - his thoughts - take on the stillness of a becalmed sea. A breath held, a pause before the storm struck, the silence of the woods when a beast is near. But the end of the last night, when he files all the links to the very point of failure, exhaustion colors everything gray.

Will looks over these poor, half starved and beaten animals, their faces scarred and full of rage or hopelessness. He offers a prayer that they will feel joy in their revenge, that they might escape and taste freedom or some semblance of a normal life. 

Then he stumbles home to sleep and must trust the rest to faith. He should be anxious, should fret and turn, should feel guilt. Some virtue or kindness simply lets Will sleep deeply and long, without dreaming.

When he wakes, the world seems to be the same. Will blinks up at the plain white ceiling, dappled and faintly uneven, familiar. He feels lighter, and it's only when he moves and feels the pulsing ache in his arms that he remembers.

It should bring cold horror, knowing the possibility of violence - the _probability_ of it - that he is responsible for.

It doesn't.

Will gets up and dresses with exacting care. He is due for a lesson with Margarita, and it gives him an excuse to go and see, but he would have gone anyway. He makes sure to keep his appearance carefully respectable. 

Will measures his steps, steeling himself - if it's worked, if it _hasn't_ worked.

He finds the estate in an uproar and his insides turn as light as air. The dogs are howling and snarling and running wild, and men are trying to catch them. Will walks through the storm in the gardens, pristine and untouched to the stairs leading up to the estate's wide entryway promenade and the people gathered there. He passes up the steps and between the columns.

The form on the ground in the ring of onlookers bears no resemblance to the golden figure Will had first seen standing over Hannibal's subdued form. What is here is folded and torn. The dogs have eaten his face, torn his neck and hands, stolen fingers and features equally. The shining white of his skull shows under his destroyed cheeks, eaten or torn away like his lips. 

Mason's lidless eyes roll wildly in their sockets exposed, and his bloody tongue moves like an angry animal behind the leer of his exposed teeth. Somehow, he is alive - though his body is laid out limp, his legs at unnatural angles.

The dogs have broken his back, but left him alive. No one moves to help him, not even Claudius, whose blood-covered form suggests he was the one to carry Masonus to safety.

Masonus' mouth works and works, blood pouring from it, pouring down his throat with every gurgling breath, his eyes rolling with threatening rage onto every form and mad with hatred. Blood stains their sclera, painting them demon's red, and blinding Masonus as he drowns on dry land, helpless to roll himself over and stop it. 

It is Will who reaches down at last to turn Mason over, to thump his numb back between the shoulder blades until he empties his airways with a wracking cough. It is not pity that motivates Will but fury - a new emotion that drives Will to a depth of cruelty he hadn't known himself capable of.

Masonus will die of course - perhaps tonight, perhaps in three weeks in a pool of his own filth - but here rendered harmless, he would suffer with no hope of retribution.

It seems a poor weight to add to the scales of Will's sins. His studies suggest the gods hold each man against this weight - knows that the burden on his own scales is no longer light, even as Masonus begins to breath again in his arms, his airways clean and free.

"A doctor," he says, looking up at Claudius, seeing his features, broad and hateful and yet anxious, knowing his own future is tied to that of Masonus. As the favorite, he would not fare well when his feared protector was gone. "Get a doctor."

Warm blood seeps onto Will's hands, and Masonus' chest heaves in his grip as he coughs up something solid and brightly bloody, wheezing. It is a scrap of his own flesh.

Claudius moves then, and Will leans down , speaks carefully into one of Masonus' ruined ears.

"I suppose," he murmurs low, just for Masonus, "this means your party's off."

Masonus' lipless mouth and unanchored tongue leave him only wordless howls in reply.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I can't tell you how good this felt to write.  
> -Also please bear with me - my Beta reader, Quedarius, is on a much deserved vacation and while I can give my own works a once over before posting, some mistakes are bound to slip through!  
> -Two more chapters left and this story should reach it's conclusion!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's a strange thing about those dogs," Margarita observes when next they walk together. There is a lightness to her in the aftermath. "Our father always warned him to mind the locks."

"It's a strange thing about those dogs," Margarita observes when next they walk together. There is a lightness to her in the aftermath. "Our father always warned him to mind the locks."

Will holds his anxiety to check, pressing it back so that he does not immediately ask any questions that might implicate Hannibal, if Margarita has suspicions of Will.

He has not seen Hannibal since before the accident, and worries he is forgotten somewhere, left to endure some torment for hours. He walks a delicate line, and knows she must as well.

She has only avoided blame by being clearly in sight of her parents at the time. The cut locks have vanished, cleaned up or hidden by some wise slave who would do best to be rid of them as soon as possible. Will does not know what has happened to Hannibal in the interim, what will happen to him in the coming days.

"You can only push a creature with teeth so far," Will offers, in a tone both lofty and regretful, separated from the situation as if he does not still wear Masonus' blood on his hands. "Will he live?"

Margarita does not answer immediately, seeming to consider the full extent of the question. Neither outcome seems to threaten her - the dogs have broken Masonus' neck, and the immediate grip of fear he possessed seems to fade when Masonus cannot see it through.

"For a day, perhaps, weeks if the doctors have no pity," Margarita says. "My father will see his broken body, his destroyed face, and will pour hemlock down Masonus' throat himself, if he must."

Will, then, has done a small measure in both injury and kindness to Masonus, at least after the initial cause to harm.

"I will do what I can for the slaves," she says. "Unlikely that my father will want to lose them all, even if he suspects one of them. He'll use the convenient excuse."

Will can barely stand the thought of Hannibal still trapped here, possibly to be passed from one danger to the next. They may step from the ashes of his efforts to something greater still. He cannot give voice to such here, and Margarita seizes his hand, giving it a squeeze.

"Go and find him," she says, leaning closer. "Perhaps he was an expense my father never knew about, and he can hardly remember all of my brother's toys. If he recalls, after all this, I can say Masonus struck him dead."

It was likely a frequent enough occurance that it would pass without the need for proof. Will steps past the marble columns and into the estate. Inside, there is chaos - and Will walks through it with calm purpose. No one so much as looks at him.

Will does not find Hannibal in any room light touches, nor set to task in the furnace of the hypocaust. The fire here is forgotten, the water left to go tepid. Perhaps it will not be started again for some time.

He descends, then, into the spaces beneath the estate, half terrified of what horrors he will find and need to pass over. Only Hannibal will walk out with him. Here, no light penetrates, only the dim echoes seeping down from the levels above. Will goes slowly, trying to keep the worry that he is already too late at bay. That he will find only a body.

It is a hall with six doors, promising horrors behind each. Behind the last door on the left he finds a figure he nearly can't recognize, thin and bound, eyes covered, mouth muzzled, naked to the waist. It is the leather muzzle that Will recognizes first, then the dark, lank hair. The rest of him is so changed or obscured that Will would never have known if he was not looking.

"Hannibal," he calls, low. No response comes. He is deep in his mind, far away where at least some parts of him can survive. Will approaches cautiously, concerned he might break some illusion and that Hannibal would crumble and vanish in this labyrinth, never to be seen again.

Will lays his hands at last on Hannibal's bruised back. There is no response, but he does not fade away, either, remaining real and solid to the touch. Will sets to untying him carefully, making low sounds. Hannibal was dangerous when he went so deep, lost to his own whereabouts.

"Where are you?" Will asks gently, working the knots free from the unfamiliar new thinness of Hannibal's wrists. The flesh is pressed tight over the bones, chaffed and cut by the chords but otherwise whole. It could be repaired, with time and patience. The rest, too, Will hopes. 

He pulls the blindfold off, and beneath it Hannibal's eyes seem lucid but dull. He turns away from Will as he undoes the buckle holding the muzzle to Hannibal's face. It feels heavy in his hands as he pulls it away, and makes a sound like a fist on flesh when it hits the floor, Hannibal's muscles seizing with startlement where Will is touching him.

"I'm going to take the collar off your neck," Will warns Hannibal, "and then we're going to walk out of here. Masonus is gone."

Hannibal looks up at him then, disbelieving. Will guiltily holds his curiosity at bay, levering the need for answers against Hannibal until he re-engages with the world. He hopes it means Hannibal will follow him out, even horses sometimes refused to be led from burning barns. 

The collar, he must cut off with the file, still carefully tucked in a fold of his sleeve. It seems to take ages while the house convulses frantically overhead. Footsteps rattle and pound, voices raise. No one dares the basement, at least.

He drops the metal collar to the floor when he can pull it from Hannibal's neck, glad to be rid of it, but Hannibal takes it up before getting back to his feet. "Better not leave any sign that something is missing."

Will doesn't disagree. "Is there a back way out?"

Hannibal shakes his head - no easy escape from this oubliette. Will thinks their best bet is the kitchens, and guides Hannibal with one hand pressed to the small of his back, cupped over his protruding spine.

"Where will we go?" Hannibal asks, and that, at least, is secure.

"I have an apartment," Will says. "If I work very hard so I can pay my rent and my patron fee, we may yet keep it."

Hannibal does not answer him, reading the edge of triumphant mania in his tone, the exhaustion and relief combining into a threat of nervous collapse. 

They pass the bloodstained and empty kitchen and out into the sunlight. Hannibal's eyes are too weak for it, and he pauses to shade them. As they walk between the abandoned kennels, all but two blown open, Hannibal pauses on the bloodstained sand. He reads the signs there, then reaches out to slip the discarded collar around the pole he had once been affixed to, leaving it behind where it belonged.

No eyes bother to fall on them as they leave the grounds, no one seems to notice their slow progress past the market square and up the stairs to Will's apartment. In the confined space, with the door shut against the world, Will at last feels safe. At last feels as if recent events have become _real_.

"Is he really dead?" Hannibal asks. He seems large in the small space - Will has never noticed how low the ceiling is, how small the area between his bed and table seems. He has never had company.

"Not yet," Will answers, "but he wishes he was."

Hannibal looks at him, measuring his meaning. Will can see that he is slowly waking to reality, unfolding from the compressed state that captivity and Masonus has rendered him into. His eyes are dark, sharp, as if he did not trust Will's assessment of Masonus' health or capabilities. Slowly, his expression changes in response to something he sees in Will, turning to deep pleasure at the certainty that Masonus has suffered.

"What did you do?" Hannibal asks.

Will shakes his head - it doesn't matter. He has thought about it enough for today. Instead, eh lifts his water pitcher onto the table, finding a clean cloth. Far from the luxurious baths of Masonus' estate, it is nonetheless a real promise of cleanliness, a freedom to wash the past from Hannibal's skin as the first step to shedding it.

Hannibal sits down on Will's bed, baring his bruised back for cleaning. In the dim lamplight, the greens and yellows seem bold around the places where the whip had touched. Will presses gently with the cloth, letting the water pour over Hannibal's skin, picking up pink and brown tinges as it washes off him. After the second, tentative touch, Hannibal leans back into it, urging Will to be less ginger, to press as hard as he wants and scrub until the skin is really clean. 

He looks only at the wall ahead of him, perhaps unable to accept Will's help if he thought about it. Will coaxes water over his arms, scrubbing his hands, over his chest and stomach. He crouches to see to Hannibal's feet.

"Will," Hannibal says, quiet. 

Will looks up, meeting Hannibal's dark, half-lidded gaze and seeing the question there. His newly clean hands come up beneath Will's chin, lifting it gently.

"Why would you go through so much?" he asks, tone nearly a whisper. "You were so intent on keeping secret."

"That doesn't mean I didn't value it - or _you_ ," Will confesses, admitting his old fear and new resolve. "I wanted to protect us. This was the same."

Hannibal laughs, bitter, his hands lifting beneath Will's chin until Will gets to his feet, until Hannibal pulls them together and hides his eyes against Will's tunic, sharing quiet and warmth.

"It didn't work," Hannibal says in a tight tone, an equal distance between laughter and collapse. "We were not protected."

Will sobs out a laugh, easing his arms around Hannibal's neck, pulling them tightly together with no regard for past injury. 

"No more secrets," Will promises, praying he can keep it, hoping that there will be no reason not to. He supposes that if Masonus did not embody the worst possible danger, there is no philosophy to save the world.

"None at all?" Hannibal mutters between them, sounding tired.

"Perhaps only one," Will allows, thinking of the collar left behind amidst the dog cages. One secret shared between, and the rest left in the past.


	13. Chapter 13

Will passes the funeral procession as it winds through the market square, wailing women passing behind the lifted coffin, bedecked in black silk. It is on its way to a final, grandiose resting place, another mask for the family, a play that makes a mirror of the direst Greek tragedy from something that benefits everyone. None of the lamentations are genuine, they are paid for.

Masonus had lived for a week by the mercy of his father or the cruelty of the gods. His skin had rotted back around the grinning skull of his face, eyes bright with fury and fever as the slow death crept on him, a heavy beast with sharp claws.

Will only pauses while the procession passes, lowering his eyes. Is the world better now, without such a creature in it?

Will thinks that's too easy to believe, too forgiving of himself. Yet, when he ascend the stairs to his small, shared apartment and finds Hannibal stretched indolently on the bed, he can believe there is some good in his actions. He looks nearly restored, wearing his fading bruises now with grace and dignity.

A sword is slung over his lap, blade bare as he works a whet stone over the edge. The sharp, metallic hiss blocks the fading sounds of the procession, Hannibal's eyes burning coals in the bloom beyond the slanting light that comes in the sole window.

"No one's noticed you missing," Will tells him, hoping he will find a reassurance in it.

Hannibal's expression sharpens, attention turning to Will as if his thoughts only know parted enough to allow knowledge of Will's presence. He has been quieter since his ordeal, tending to slip back into whatever distant place in his thoughts had kept him through it. Will supposes that will fade in time, that the habit will ease as he realizes his freedom. The sword has certainly helped, and likely, Masonus' death would cut another bar from the cage of his thoughts.

"I would say everyone who remembered me won't miss me," Hannibal says, showing his teeth fiercely in a way that makes Will's hand ache in memory.

"Who _would_ want you back, having gotten rid of you?" Will teases, in good humor. They are free - not quite now on even footing. Will has years more to pay for his citizenship, but Hannibal has paid his dues in blood. For now, he has skipped past Will in status, and by Will's count that evened the score between them.

"Are you going to throw me out again?" Hannibal's tone is dangerous, almost. Not quite a threat, but with a tone that suggests - after everything - that the answer had better be 'no'.

Will shakes his head - they are past a point where secrecy can matter, past defending themselves with denial. Where they are now he doesn't quite know - close, but made distant by a past lying between them. They may need to begin again, Will thinks, looking at Hannibal across the small space. He sits, self-possessed in a pointed way.

Will steps closer, and Hannibal recovers his sheath from the bedside, sliding the sword into it before tucking it beneath the bed. He waits where he is in command and lets Will come to him.

"Is it alright if I-?" Will asks, hesitating at the edge of Hannibal's personal space and indicating a place beside him on the bed. Hannibal does not quite flinch at his presence, but at night, in the dark, he goes stiff and small, easing away until they are isolated islands on the bed.

Will does not push him. Time may heal some of it, but not with pressure and bruises still fading from Hannibal's skin. Hannibal looks up at him, eyes dark, the fire slid out of them again to make way for something else. It goes inward, this thing. Some cross between knowing his aversion and the root of it, and irritation at being unable to pull it out and discard it. 

He hates that more than the whole of his experience with Masonus, his inability to expunge it - and the associated aversions - and to return to what he wanted with Will. For a long moment, his only response is silence, a slow ticking of time as Hannibal banishes the reactions he does not want to have, and then he nods, making a place for Will to sit. 

"I put up a notice," Hannibal reveals, as Will settles next to him, not quite touching. "If you can teach civility, I can teach brutality."

Will shakes his head, but he is glad that Hannibal is taking a step. Moving toward possession of himself, reaching for something beyond what still tried to hold him. 

"We are both civil and both brutal," Will tells Hannibal, watching dust motes drift through the slanted light.

Hannibal makes an affirmative noise, and he does not lean away when Will presses their shoulders together.

"How did you find me?" Hannibal asks, then. Quiet, drifting again into his own thoughts.

"Would you rather I hadn't?" Will lets the question slip, finding it perched on his tongue too readily, more casual and more important than he intended.

Hannibal doesn't answer, and it leaves Will to his thoughts. Perhaps he had not quite found Hannibal, perhaps Will had not been entirely himself by the time they met again. They had both changed while they were apart, but there is some comfort in being thrust together again. Hannibal must still, somewhere, want Will's company.

For a time, they are both quiet, sharing space and silence with their thoughts. 

In the strange peace Will sleeps, awkward but easy, and he does not feel vulnerable. He wakes sore from the awkward position but not alone, though Hannibal has eased away from him in the night. 

In the morning, Will teaches the students that Iohannes had first referred to him, a pair of boys and by extension their older sister. For the first time in some months, he feels able to devote his full attention to it. 

"His friend Crito," Will explains, explaining one of the final dialogs of Socrates and finding some irony in the topic, "explained that Socrates must still teach others and take care of his children, arguing that he must not take the easy path of non-resistance. To Crito, the braver path was to fight his unjust imprisonment and go into exile."

Will remembers how Marcus' eyes had shone at the thought of a daring escape, that the digestion of the actual conclusion of the story had taken him some time. He sees an echo of that in the two boys arrayed at his feet. 

Margarita had responded with scepticism, as she did every dialog, unable to shed the careful darkened tint she saw the world with for even these exercises. The brand he sees on Abi's face - she at the back of the nursery with her sewing as she often is - is different. She absorbs Will's lessons for her brothers by contact, and now considers the conundrum from several angles.

"Abi, what do you think?" Will asks, lifting his voice. She turns a sharp looks on him, guiltily picking up the tunic she was set to mending. Her expression looks nearly betrayed when both her brothers also turn to look at her.

She frowns at Will fiercely, but then tilts up her chin to answer him, challenging. "We've only heard half. Socrates' opinion should also be considered. "

Will smiles, pleased. "Socrates argued that he had entered into a contract with the city by living in it. When he began to benefit from it, he agreed to obey what edicts the city made as to what was right or wrong.

"Because escaping into exile would be an injustice, Socrates argued that it wasn't a matter of reputation, but a matter of a citizen standing in relation to his city. To do an injustice, even in response to an injustice, would destroy the city."

Abi scoffs. Will tries to keep his smile hidden.

"One man is not a city," she says

"But his actions can reflect-" Will starts, and she shakes her head.

"If injustice cannot be answered with injustice, it shouldn't be done in the first place," she decides coolly, with the certainty of youth.

"What does it matter what _Abi_ thinks?" the older boy asks, and Will transfers his attention onto the child until he feels the weight of his own words.

"Socrates listened to and taught everyone. One of his greatest students was Lasthenia, and her friend Axiothea also studied with Plato. They were great philosophers."

The boys do not look like they they believe him, but he sees interest in Abi's eyes, and the joy he feels in teaching returns.

"So what happened?" The younger boy asks, and Will pulls his thoughts back to the topic.

"Crito had to concede that to encourage lawless actions was to encourage lawlessness in the state," Will says. "He allowed that his actions influenced more than himself."

"That's true either way," Abi says, curtly. "No matter what he did, he influenced others."

"Which way did he do the greatest good?" Will challenges her, wondering if she is already set in her decision.

"He should have taken the path that most positively affected what - and who - he loved," she says, taking up her sewing suddenly like a shield from the judgment she seems to expect for it. 

"Even if it meant-"

She looks up at him, then, her young expression clear and readable, through the downward angle of her chin and the upward roll of her eyes. Will has her answer, and none of his philosophical arguments will change it.

Will appreciates her position, when he considers it later. It is not the point of the dialog to present all possible answers, but to inspire the students to consider what they would do and feel in such a situation.

That evening, Hannibal shares Will's small table, drifting in their own thoughts as they eat together. 

"Do you think two unjust actions can cancel each other out?" Will asks, allowing that his philosophy has room for input from those it affects.

Hannibal looks up, and his smile is real, feral and amused.

"Where I'm from, that's balance," he says, "and not injustice."

Will is surprised at the simplicity that seems to defeat all of the Roman complexity and artifice, rendering an elegant solution to a difficult philosophical question.

Hannibal half-stands, planting his hands on the table, leaning over and kissing Will gently. Slowly. Once.

Balance.

[END.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -And here we reach the end of this saga. I hope you guys have enjoyed this journey, a little whump, a little comfort, but in the end we're all okay. (You're okay aren't you?)

**Author's Note:**

> -Beta'd as always by the amazing [Quedarius](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius), to whom I owe a debt of service by this point for all her hard work! Also, the beautiful titlecard you may have seen on tumblr is her work as well!  
> -And this is done at the request of another amazing person, who has been kind and supportive and wanted some Hannibal!Whump. It's coming, I promise.  
> -Iohannes is still the Romanized version of Jack.  
> -Phyllia is the devolved version of Phyllis, which is Bella's correct name. Of course I'm certain that Jack has a sweet pet name for her in this universe as well, it would be none of Will's business to know it.  
> -Patron/Clientela relationships were extremely common, and founded much of Roman interpersonal relationships. These often nested several levels deep, or a Patron would have several/many clientela indebted to him. A big old pyramid scheme and it worked great. Normally a freedman would be expected to be his former master's clientela for a few years, and also take his master's surname.


End file.
